The Cries From Dead Worlds
by HomeOnTheWastes
Summary: Sequel to All Along The Watchtower. AU of Myst III: Exile. The Courier is reunited with Atrus and his family after ten years of keeping in contact with letters exchanged through Big Mountain's unstable portal, but this isn't a social call. Atrus has asked for her scavenging expertise, and Katran is worried about unrest in Tay. On top of it all, someone is breaking into Tomahna...
1. Prologue

**The Cries From Dead Worlds**

**Prologue**

Dear Atrus,

Remember when you invited me to come to stay with you guys whenever I felt the portal from Big Mountain to your New Mexico was safe enough for human travel? Well, I'd like to take you up on that offer. Let me know whenever is a good time for you and I'll be there.

It's taken a decade, but at last we have finally figured out how to send someone through without putting them into a coma for two months. Even Arcade is confident it'll work, so you know it's safe.

You said I could bring a friend with me, and I know just the person. You'll find him fascinating, I assure you. And no, it's not Arcade. I know you wanted to meet him, but the first Follower's school is going to open in New Vegas and he's supposed (forced) to attend. He is going to be a busy man for the rest of the year.

I was actually going to hold off visiting until some of my other friends were free of obligations, but then you told me in your last letter that you think someone has been breaking into your home. As your friend, I want to help as much as I can. No offense, but I have a bit more experience when it comes to these sort of things than you do. Hopefully, Kat's right and it's just paranoia getting overblown, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Were the break-ins the reason why you suddenly accepted my offer to give you one of Roxie's kids? If it is, then you made the right decision. Not only are cyber dogs great with small children, they are excellent for home defense. I even updated a bit of your new friend's programming to focus more on that and less on aid in combat. Reilly didn't mind, she's just excited that she's finally going to have a job. All of her brother's and sisters are already out and about on their own. Reilly's your new dog's name, by the way. She's a Boston Terrier, so she isn't the biggest dog, but she's a sensible one. Something I have no doubt you appreciate.

While I'm there, I thought maybe I could give you guys a hand with scavenging what's left of the D'ni city. That's another area I have a ton of experience in. You never know, I might see some useful things you missed. Every little bit helps, right?

I'm looking forward to seeing you and Kat again, and let's not forget finally meeting baby Yeesha. I have a gift for her. It's something I had as a small child, and I wanted to pass it along.

See you soon,

Six


	2. Don't You Mess Around

**The Cries From Dead Worlds**

**Chapter One: Don't You Mess Around**

The sun blanketed the desert sands and rocky mountains of the New Mexico desert that stretched out before her. It looked a sight better before the bombs. No raiders, mutants, or vicious tribals roamed the land. No radiation. The sky was a perfect cloudless blue. It really was beautiful. At least to the Courier it was, and she told Katran so when she asked.

Six turned away from the view to face her friend with a smile. The woman returned it whole heartedly, and even Yeesha joined in with a happy giggle from her spot in her mother's arms. She waved at Six and she walked over at the baby's beckoning.

"Hello, missy. That's a pretty bow," Six complimented. Yeesha had been wearing a nice sunny outfit with little flowers on it when she had gone with her mother to pick up Six, but an accident involving some milk had forced her mommy to change her daughter's clothes shortly after the small luncheon that Katran had prepared. She was now sporting a simple white dress that contrasted with Katran's dark jacket.

The little girl reached up and tugged the Courier's sunglasses off of her face to stick a small part of one the lenses into her mouth. Her mother was set to admonish her, but Six just laughed and let Yeesha have them.

"You know, I am so glad to see you again. I told Atrus our paths would cross again," Katran said. Her eyes were bright as she crouched down to give Reilly a quick pet. She might not have been too crazy about some of Atrus' other security measures, but she already adored the dog. "He was just going to grab something for your trip to Releeshahn, so he shouldn't be terribly long," Katran told Six. She sighed and looked at her daughter as though speaking to her, "Unless he decided to check over the whole house first, which means he could be hours resetting all the padlocks. But I know he was looking forward to introducing you to the D'ni, so he shouldn't be long. Why don't you wait in his study?" She suggested as she moved to sit on the only bench in the Sun Room of Tomahna. It sat between two ivy adorned columns holding up the stained glass ceiling. The room was beautifully down in blues and greens. Six could see why Katran had picked it to have their lunch in.

"I actually wanted to test the strength of his locks," Six said and eyed one of the two stained glass doors. The locks wouldn't matter if someone just decided to break them down.

"Oh no, not you too. It is all in his head, I am sure of it," Katran replied, bouncing Yeesha on her knee. The baby giggled, clearly enjoying the attention. Reilly stopped her quest of categorizing all the scents in the room long enough to approach the pair. Yeesha reached for the dog with the hand not holding onto the sunglasses and patted her nose in a clumsy imitation of what her mother had done only a moment earlier. Reilly licked her hand. The baby giggled again and Katran smiled at the sight.

ED-E beeped beside Six. Katran looked up briefly, but her curiosity with the robot had already been exhausted long before.

"&%# %"

"Book? What book?"

"%^!"

"Oh, yeah! That book," Six said and reached into her bag. "Kat, I have a present for Yeesha. Though, I don't think she'll appreciate it until she's a bit older."

The Courier pulled out a small book made of thick cardboard and painted in cheery colors. She had lovingly restored an old copy when she had heard the good news of Katran's pregnancy.

The woman accepted the gift and looked at the cover. "You're Special?" she asked.

"Uh huh. I had one when I was little, loved the thing. It's the book dad used to teach me to read. It's got some Vault-Tec stuff in it, the same thing my pip-boy's got that allows it to show me how healthy I am. The big selling point of it before the War had been that it supposedly predicts what small children's strengths will be when they get older. I don't remember what numbers mine showed, so I can't tell you if it's true or not. But I wanted Yeesha to have one."

"S is for strength, and that means I am strong! I can carry lots of toys and swing stuff all day long!" Katran read when she opened it. "This is delightful," she said as she turned to another page. "Oh, I see. SPECIAL is an acronym. Very clever. Thank you."

"Thank ED-E for reminding me. I never would have remembered without him," Six gave the robots chassis a fond pat on the side. ED-E beeped cheerfully.

Six removed her lockpicks from her jean's pocket and went over to the locked door. She got down on her knees and examined the lock. ED-E hovered over her head on standby.

"They are made of Nara. It's stronger than steel. I very much doubt that anyone is going to break them," Katran informed her.

"I'm afraid that it doesn't really matter what it's made out of if it's poorly designed inside. I judge tumbler locks by how many picks I break trying to get it open...actually..." Six trailed off. She removed her screwdriver before shining her pip-boy light into the keyhole. "It's not bad. I've seen better, but this isn't something just anybody would be able to crack."

"You did not even break any of your lockpicks," Katran observed. She set Yeesha on the ground beside where Reilly was lounging. She let her daughter crawl around a bit, but kept a close eye on her. Yeesha immediately went for Reilly and she dropped the sunglasses to place her small hands on the dog's side before resting her head there. Reilly put her own head down on her paws. Both were looking content to nap like that for the rest of the afternoon.

"Didn't have to. The resistance on the first try spoke volumes," Six said. It was about as well designed as most of Randall Clark's locks had been. "Speaking of resistance. In the Linking Chambers on the Prison Ages, did you guys install a way to open them on one side like I advised?"

"Yes, why?" Katran asked, she tilted her head and searched Six's blank face.

"Because ten years is a long time to go between doctors visits. I'm afraid it's not in me to deny them treatment just because they've been terrible people. Don't tell Atrus though. I'd rather be the one to tell him what I'm planning on doing."

Katran's eyes misted just a little and she smiled as she said, "I know that it is a dangerous thing you are planning—as Atrus is fond of telling me that visiting them is—but it cannot be worse than fighting the Wahrk. I would like to think that you know what you are doing. I would like to think that neither would harm you and that there is no danger, but I know that to be untrue. I thank you for putting yourself at risk for their own benefit. Their health is something I worry over constantly."

"If it makes you feel any better, I've got a stun gun." Six removed the Compliance Regulator from the holster on her left hip and showed it to her while being careful not to draw attention to the holorifle slung across her back and not mentioning the Hyperbreeder in her bag at all. Six had come prepared for anything this time around. "On this setting it's guaranteed to knock anyone out cold. They'll have a nasty headache when they wake up, but they'll be no worse for wear." She was also wearing her Kevlar vest for that little bit of added protection.

"I hope you do not have to use that," she said.

"Hey, me too," Six agreed. "It's been ten years, a lot can change in that time. Er, have they?"

Katran reached over and touched one of the large leaves on the ivy beside her.

"I do not know. It is hard to tell anything with bars separating us. I'm just glad that Achenar is finally coming to meet with us. It's so good to see him again after so long, and he is so calm now. With him, it is almost like before everything went wrong. Almost," she sighed.

It had taken Atrus and Katran two years to build the Linking Chambers after the debacle on Myst and Riven. From the sounds of it from their letters, Sirrus had been swinging predictably between crocodile tears and indignant rage since they started visiting him. As for Achenar, he had stopped meeting with his parents once he learned they were planning on leaving him there, but Katran had still tried visiting him. She tried once a month for six years of nothing until one day he just showed up to see her. He had been coming to the Linking Chamber faithfully ever since and the meetings had increased to a lot more than once in a month.

Before Six could think of a reply, the previously locked door opened. Atrus walked in carrying a book in his hand and wearing a truly atrocious long coat. Yellow? What was he thinking?

"My friend, it is good to see you again," Atrus said. He smiled at her and Six returned it, the coat forgotten. The last ten years had aged the man more then the previous twenty had. His hair had grayed some and his face was worn and lined with his constant worrying. Maybe Achenar and Sirrus weren't the only ones who needed a checkup.

"Your friend who you kept waiting for a very long time," his wife said dryly. She bent down and picked up her daughter, waking both her and the dog. Yeesha murmured and fidgeted in discontentment in her mommy's arms. Katran beckoned for Reilly to follow and they left the room. The dog paused only long enough to catalogue Atrus' scent. The man stooped down to give her a quick pat on the neck, avoiding her braincase. She licked his fingers before bounding off after Kat and Yeesha. Six had made it clear to the dog before they arrived that she needed to stick close to the baby and keep her safe while they investigated the break-ins. When the door shut again, Atrus turned back to his guest.

"#%! ) }_*!="

"Can ED-E explore your house?" Six asked for him.

"Eddie?" Atrus asked and looked around. He spotted the him and nearly dropped his book. He adjusted his glasses and walked up to examine the robot. "Oh, what is it?"

"An Eyebot. He was intended for combat, but his creator, a guy named Whitley, put a lot more than that into him. He doesn't miss a thing," Six said and couldn't help the pride in her voice. ED-E had been a constant for her since she had fixed him in Primm all those years ago.

"He?"

"Sure."

"And he's intelligent," Atrus asked, getting more interested by the second. Six hid a grin behind her hand. Hopefully, he wouldn't try to take ED-E apart.

"*#?"

"Yes, he is."

"Fascinating. Those beeps, are they a sort of language?"

"Can he explore your house while we talk?" Six repeated ED-E request. "He likes to know where things are."

He blinked at her and nodded. "Yes, of course."

ED-E escaped Atrus' scrutinizing before he was even done giving permission. Poor robot hadn't really liked attention since the Brotherhood of Steel tried to kidnap him. That hadn't gone well. For the Brotherhood, anyway.

"He says, thank you," Six said, answering Atrus' question without answering it. "What took you so long to get here in the first place?"

"I'm sorry if I kept you waiting. But since we might be gone a few days I needed to secure some of my things. And I also wanted to bring you this." He held up the book he was carrying to show her. It was thin and made of light brown leather with a pattern around the border.

Six reached to take it, but stopped when the sound of somebody Linking came from Atrus' office. The Courier took one look at the confused alarm on Atrus' face before rushing into the room with him right behind her just as they heard glass shattering.

A man in pale rags was holding an ornate dark red book in his hands. When he saw them, he grabbed one of the fire orbs on a metal railing surrounding a pedestal. What he was going to do with that, Six never found out because she shot him with her Compliance Regulator. He went down hard, books clattering to the floor. The fire orb rolled away from his slack hand, harmless.

"Releeshahn!" Atrus pushed passed Six and ran to the large book the man had been trying to steal.

"Is it alright?" The Courier asked, holstering the stun gun. ED-E came zooming into the room, beeping in agitation. Six soothed him by smoothing out his new bumper sticker with a picture of a hand of playing cards. A royal flush.

"Yes, yes. Thank Yahvo." He turned to the nearby unconscious man. "Who?" Atrus gasped, "Saavedro?"

"Know him?" She asked as she came to kneel beside him. Six pulled out a roll of duck tape from her bag and maneuvered the man's hands behind his back so she could restrain him.

Atrus was doing his very best to at least pretend he was calm, but the illusion was a frayed one. He held Releeshahn in a white knuckled grip as if he were afraid someone would reach out and try to yank it away. Six couldn't blame him, he had been working so hard for so long towards reestablishing D'ni society that the idea of losing his connection to it must be a truly terrifying thought.

"Yes. Yes I do. What happened to him? Why is he-"

"One thing at a time," Six said. She put the roll back. "There's a book here. I guess he was planning on using it." She picked it up and examined the cover.

"Which is it?" Atrus asked.

"Jah-naan-nin?"

"J'nanin?" he corrected.

"That's it," Six said, handing it to him.

He took it and looked at it like it held the answers to all of his questions.

"Why? It's uninhabited." Atrus opened the cover and looked at the Linking Panel. Six leaned over to take a look over his shoulder. Another island. This one had gigantic tusks sticking up from the ground. Interesting.

"What do you use it for?"

"It was the beginning of a series of lesson Ages I prepared for my sons when they were younger." He sighed sadly, "Before I stopped teaching them the Art. They never got much further in their lessons beyond what's in those Ages." Atrus shook his head and said, "Narayan, where Saavedro is from, was the only inhabited one."

Six pulled her green bandanna out of her bag and tied it around her head to keep her hair pushed back.

"I'll investigate what's in J'nanin, but is there a safe place to put him until I get the facts in?" she asked.

Atrus thought, staring at the Releeshahn book. He got up and placed it back on the pedestal with care one would normally give to fine china.

"I could put him in Spire. All of Sirrus' things were moved when we transferred him to Veil. He even destroyed his research and projects, just to spite me, no doubt. So the Age is almost as clean as it was before Sirrus Linked there"

"Wasn't the reason your wife talked you into moving Sirrus elsewhere was that the Age was bad for his mental health or something?" Six reminded him. It had been a big argument between the two for months. They had both written her separate letters to get her on their perspective sides. Atrus thought that moving him to nicer Age would send the wrong message. Katran had been convinced the Age was only making things worse. Unfortunately for Atrus, Six sided with his Katran.

"It should be alright temporarily," Atrus said. "Sirrus survived there just fine for seven years."

"I guess beggars can't be choosers. Take him there, and I'll go see what's so special about J'nanin." Six took the Linking Book back. "ED-E. We got work to do."

"&!^ (,$# ["

"That's the spirit," Six replied. "Atrus, stay away from Saavedro until I get back. I want to know more about his plans—if he even had any—before we talk to him."

"Alright," he agreed gravely. "Wait a moment before you go." Atrus went over to one of his cabinets and unlocked it to take out a book colored in natural tones. "Take this. It's a Linking Book that leads back here. I don't want you to be trapped there in case something bad happens." He watched her put it into her bag before saying, "Be careful, my friend."

"I always am." She wrapped her arm around ED-E. Six touched the Linking Panel and disappeared into its pages.

Chapter One End

Up Next: Investigating J'nanin

**Author's Note:**

Why did I have Six stun Saavedro? I did it because Six would be armed, that's just in her character. Had she not had the Compliance Regulator she would have shot him with something more deadly, and I didn't want to kill him. So, he got knocked out. But don't worry, Six is still going to every Age in the game. The only difference is that the sense of urgency is her desire not to leave Saavedro alone for too long, and not to get the Releeshahn Book back. There's also still danger lurking in those Lesson Ages...

In the Myst games, Atrus and Catherine hadn't started visiting their sons until some years after the events in Exile. But thanks to Six's intervention and advice, they've been visiting since about two years after Riven. That's change number one in Exile so far.

And Sirrus has been moved to another Age! That's another big difference from the games. Perhaps even the biggest one so far. I'm going to elaborate on the reasoning behind it more later on. For now just go with it.

The title for this fic is based on the song Cries of a Dead World by Gavin Dunne (Miracle of Sound). It's a song he made for Wasteland 2 on Youtube, but I thought with a slight word change that it would be relevant to what this is about. It's a great song and worth a listen. The title for this chapter is lyrics taken from TNT by AC/DC, in case you wanted to know. Fun fact: every chapter in my series but one has been named after either titles or lyrics from various songs.

Thank you for coming back,

_Home On the Wastes _

**Disclaimer: I own nothing that can be recognized in this fanfiction. **


	3. Crazy, She Calls Him

**The Cries From Dead Worlds**

**Chapter Two: Crazy, She Calls Him**

Six let go of the frantically beeping ED-E. He flew a few feet away from her and spun around to get his bearings. Her feet sunk an inch into fine white sand as she made one full revolution on the spot to see what was around her. Giant tusks, cliffs, and a way further down into a crater that made up the middle of the island. In the center of it all, the largest tusk with a building at its peak. The bulk of the building was made of a reddish material that she couldn't identify from so far away, and the curved roof was a metallic green. Beside her, sat a thing on a pole that reminded her of the telescopes at tourist traps. She tried looking through it, but didn't see anything interesting that she couldn't spot with her own eyes.

She crossed a short decorative bridge that allowed safe travel over a precarious looking rock. ED-E was as quick to follow her as always. They turned a corner and Six spotted rungs attached to the side of a cliff wall. She scaled it, testing each rung before putting her weight on it.

On the top was another bridge like the one below leading to the building on top of the tusk. She went across it and examined the door that led inside the structure. She couldn't see anything that indicated it was trapped, so she tried the handle. Six had fully expected it to be locked, but was pleasantly surprised to find it opened at her touch.

It granted her entrance into a circular room. The red color continued inside, but the ceiling was black and haloed by a clear glass ring that let natural sunlight stream in. Gold metal patterned the walls, separating them into segments. A safety railing circled a hole in the floor that held an egg made of a lattice work of the same gold metal. Three objects that reminded her of beetles decorated the walls at even intervals. She was careful to check for tripwires and pressure plates before she stepped inside.

Six was about to touch the blue button sitting near the break in the railing and something that she imagined to be some sort of scanner when ED-E beeped.

"Found something?"

She circled around to get to ED-E. On the ground, right below where he floated, was a set of pages with jagged edges that told her that it had been torn out of a book. She picked them up, and muttered a curse when she saw the first words written on it.

"Sirrus and Achenar. Figures."

She read over the words carefully and then stored the papers in her bag safely between the pages of her Big Book of Science. A sigh escaped her.

"I got a motive. Revenge. It sounds like Atrus' two jackass sons worked their own special charm on this guy's home Age," Six turned at ED-E with a frown. "Why do you suppose he tried to take Releeshahn? What does that have to do with anything?"

" )%!#+* ^{)-& %!*:#"

"Maybe, but targeting Atrus would be a real bastard thing to do. Do you think the guy was crazy enough not care that their dad had nothing to do with whatever his sons did?" she asked.

"($="

"I guess we'll see," Six said and went back over to the button. She pressed it and watched the beetle like things on the walls open. Lights activated inside them. Red, blue, and green. They shined onto the ceiling and a large holographic image of Atrus appeared. He smiled and nodded down at her.

"ED-E, Atrus is god!" Six said.

"My sons, I promised to teach you the 'secrets' of my Ages. This world is the first step on your journey. Search the island and you will find three Linking Books. Each connects to an Age-"

Atrus' image flickered and then blurred before being replaced by Saavedro's haggard face. He smiled too, but his held a lot less warmth than Atrus'.

"Hello, Atrus. Been a long time. Sorry I'm not there to greet you in person but I just didn't think it would be wise, considering how long I've been stuck here." His false warm expression faded to be replaced by barely controlled rage. "Trapped in these 'Lesson Ages' by two very greedy little boys. Your sons, Atrus. Sirrus and Achenar. Course, they're not so little anymore. Not so innocent. I thought a lot about innocence these last few years and what happens when it gets lost." For a split second, Atrus' face merged with Saavedro's. "Worried about Releeshahn? I have it. Worried about friend...relatives...people you can't get back? I know just how you feel. But if you want to do something about it, you're going to have to open this device. And there's just one problem. I've changed the three symbols that do that. So if you want to reclaim Releeshahn, you're gonna have to take your own class. Find the three symbols, Atrus. And don't keep me waiting forever." The holographic projectors shut of.

"Damn, I guess you were right. I'm really glad I told Atrus not to talk to Saavedro now."

ED-E beeped in agreement.

"Alright. Saavedro probably has traps waiting in the Lesson Ages. I think our first priority is to get rid of whatever he did there to make them safe again," Six said, already getting a bad feeling. A man consumed by revenge was a man beyond reason. If you handled it carefully, you _might_ be able to talk a person out of it, but Saavedro already had everything planned out. Whatever was waiting in the Lesson Ages couldn't be good.

"/&'*! ^(,%"

"No, there's no point in going back to Tomahna yet. We only just got started. Besides, we don't know if Saavedro had an accomplice. If we drop the book Linking back, another person could come up and take it while we're gone. I'd rather not risk that possibility just yet," Six explained. She looked at the lattice cage down below, "I could probably climb down there, maybe modify the Hyperbreeder into a blowtorch, or you could use your Arc Welder on the bars, but we'd run the risk of damaging the Book." She sighed, "Looks like we have a class to take. Let's look around here a bit more before we find a way to the Lessons. Knowing Atrus, it won't be easy to access them. He likes to make things impressive and more complicated than it really needs to be. And because these are supposed to be lessons for both of his sons, I have no doubt he went all out here. Those two are smart, bat shit crazy, but smart. It'd take some serious puzzles to challenge those two."

Six walked over to the elevator to call it and waited with her hands planted on her hips.

"?(/#"

Six gasped in response, "Cheat? How dare you? I _never _cheat. I have never been more offended in all of my-oh, the door won't open."

Trying to force an entry proved fruitless fast. She gave it up as a bad job in record time, and decided to see if there was another way to get to the ground floor. They exited the tusk and crossed the bridge and ladder again to end up back where they started.

"Let's see where the beach goes," Six said and used the rungs someone embedded into a boulder to get down to sea level. The sand was more tan and deeper on the beach than it had been on the rocks above. The two followed the way it led in silence.

At one point, she climbed up another makeshift ladder to get to another telescope thing, but it didn't reveal anything relevant to her. Considering that Atrus was the one who put them there, the telescopes were for something, she just didn't know for what yet.

They continued on, but not before Six saw that there was a way into the lower portion of the large tusk. It was at the bottom of the crater in the middle of the island. All they had to do to get to it was keep going forward. Simple enough. If only things would stay that way.

The pair eventually came to the staircase down and ED-E just zoomed down ahead of her. Sometimes Six wished she didn't need legs to move either.

She descended in due time, passed a rock that made the wind whistle as it blew through it, and saw better the structure at the base of the tusk. Beautiful stained glass that reminded her a bit of Tomahna's Sun Room made up a good portion of it and left no doubt in her mind who the creator of the building was.

"What kind of animal do you suppose those tusks came from? A whale, like a bigger version of a Wahrk." Six asked ED-E as she crossed the bridge over the crater's lake to get to the building.

":%!"

"When we get back I'll ask Atrus if they're organic or artificial in origin." Six reached the door and examined the lattice work pattern decorating it. She was beginning to notice a theme. "If I'm right, you don't get to complain about carrying things for me for two months. If you're right, I'll spring the extra caps to get you a nice waxing."

"$&!"

Six opened the door and the smell of plants smacked her in the face, contrasting sharply to the smell of ocean air just outside the structure. She checked for traps, but doubted there would be any here. Saavedro sounded set on making Atrus go through with the lessons.

ED-E and she navigated until they came onto a moderately sized room. A slightly raised level with a work table on it was facing the entrance. A hammock was strung up in one corner and lots of little bits and bobs were scattered around. At the back of the room looked like the bottom of the elevator shaft.

They circled around the desk to get to the back of the room where a painting of a woman had been done right on the wall. Six brushed her fingers where the red haired woman's eyes should have been before turning away to examine the desk. Clearly, Saavedro had been using the room. She went over to the hammock and picked up a brown book with a dried leaf pressed to the cover.

"Here's a journal, but it's missing a lot of pages. Why'd he tear 'em out. Something he didn't want us to know? Or calling attention to something he wants us to know right now? He did plan all of this for Atrus to 'learn' something, after all."

"/,)["

She scanned the pages that were left inside, and pushed away whatever pity she had gathered up for Saavedro. The man had chosen to take the wrong path and had threatened one of her friends. If she hadn't been there to stop him, who knows what he might have done. Yes, what had happened to him was terrible, but this wasn't the way. It wasn't even the best method to get revenge. There were so many better ways to go about it that didn't involve sinking to Sirrus and Achenar's level.

She snapped the diary shut and said, "He's done something to the Ages here. We better catalogue the damage for Atrus and hope he can fix it."

Six removed the pages from her Science book and put them back where they belonged in the journal. She couldn't tell if there was some sort of order, so she just put them in randomly. She'd figure it out later.

"*+ $"

"Hmmm?"

ED-E was hovering by the work table near a large shell being used as a pot for strange pod plant. When she got closer, she heard a fly buzzing around from what sounded like inside of the thing.

"Is it carnivorous? I think it's carnivorous. At least it doesn't seem to be actively hostile like the Spore Plants." Six's eyes slipped away from it to look at the other objects on the table. "What's this thing?" She reached to turn the crank on top of a domed object with a sphere inside a lattice work cage. Electricity sparked in it the moment she moved the hand crank. It went through the cables attached to a clear cylinder fastened to a cog that kept it standing up. The static caused flakes of something inside of it begin to float. To her left, the plant twitched. She stopped turning the crank and the electricity stopped.

"Interesting, but that doesn't help us."

The next thing to come under her scrutinization was one of the two scales in the room. The one on the desk had a stone ball attached to one end and on the other was a bowl of four crystal balls. She picked one up to get a better look and the scale unbalanced with the stone ball now being heavier. Six put it back and the scale righted.

"This is fixed to the table, so Atrus must have had this here for his sons. Which means it's important." Six made a note of it on her pip-boy to make sure she wouldn't forget. "ED-E remind me of this if you see something that this might apply to," Six said and he beeped an affirmative.

They went over to the other scale and saw that four wooden balls weighed the same as one crystal. She made a note of that too before going back around the desk to see what was on the other side of the hammock. On a stone table with moss and tiny grass, there was a model that looked like it was used for teaching about weights and levers. Three little doll figures dangled down and acted as the weights on the fulcrum. Two on side and one on the other. It clearly had not been made by Atrus.

She shook her head and said, "Come on ED-E I don't think there's much more to see here. Let's go find those Ages."

Chapter Two End

Up Next: Exploring Edanna

**Author's Note:**

YES! I know I spelled Saavedro's name wrong in last chapter. I remember reminding myself before I started writing the previous chapter that his name is spelled with two A's and not two E's, despite how it sounds. But what did I do? I wrote it with two E's anyway, _every single time_, and then glossed over it when I went to check over what I had written. I am a complete moron. I've already fixed it in the first chapter, but I'm making this author's note to document my mistake so maybe I'll learn something. Please accept my humble apologies.

Also, the next chapter is going to cover the entirety of Edanna and will be a longer one. So expect a bit of a delay in posting.

Thank you for putting up with me,

_Home On the Wastes_


	4. Pretty Flowers

**The Cries From Dead Worlds**

**Chapter Three: Pretty Flowers Need the Sun, This Applies To Everyone**

"You're adorable. Listen to your little squeaks!" Six scooped up the furry creature resembling something like a cross between a mouse and rabbit that she had found living on the shores of J'nanin's lake and cuddled it close. It squeaked, it's cheeks puffing up as it did so. It calmly settled into her arms and looked around curiously from its new perch. She grinned widely and scratched the top of its head, much to its delight.

Upon leaving Vault 101 all those years ago, she had quickly discovered that she had a strange way with animals. None of the ones other people claimed to be hostile ever attacked her. The Yao Guai in the Capital barely even glanced in her direction. She might as well have been a rock for all they cared. Only the most vicious or mutated ever picked a fight. It came in handy, but she never had an true explanation for it.

She carried the little creature with her on her way to find the tusk that had the bird symbol above its door. She had chosen that one at random from her three choices as it didn't really seem to matter. She moved the creature onto her shoulders and it hung on as she climbed a ladder up from the base of the island back onto the cliffs above.

The ladder ended on a landing with a very large plant and weird moss with things that could be fruit in it growing on the side of the cliff. The creature on her shoulders let out a squeak and hopped off of her to bound over to the moss' fruit. Her eyes widened when they inflated, for lack of a better word, and the little guy dug right into the one nearest the bottom. Six shrugged and left her new friend to his lunch to go up the next ladder.

Once at the top, she found herself fortunate that she had brought the creature up with her because it looked like someone had knocked down the original bridge to the tusk. The expanded fruit fixed the problem nicely and would allow her to get across. Six could only hope the animal would not stop eating while she was at the halfway point. That would be nasty fall.

Six reached the door with no problems, and fired off the Hyperbreeder into the sky to signal ED-E who had separated from her when they had made the plan to get inside the Bird Tusk. Satisfied that ED-E would come in his own time, she looked around the room inside the apparently hollow tusk. An egg shaped cage made up of (you guessed it) a lattice work of metal was suspended near the ceiling. She was trying to decide whether or not it was really made of gold when ED-E glided into the room.

The Courier gave him a distracted wave of her hand, too busy considering the problem of getting the cage with the Linking Book down. ED-E saw her conundrum immediately.

"/ )\"

"No, I don't want to have to explain to Atrus why the damn thing is no longer attached to its cable." She raised an eyebrow at him, "And I thought we weren't going to cheat."

"/&^="

"I could probably climb it," Six responded. She dropped her bag on the ground and grabbed hold of the counter weight. She pulled herself up the cable hand over hand, using the wall for help. She made it up to the level of the cage and maneuvered to free the Linking Book from its holder. She let the Book drop to the floor, confident the height wouldn't damage it. It landed with a thud, barely missing ED-E and scaring off her furry friend who had poked its head into the room out of curiosity. She dropped down not a moment later, rolling when she hit the ground to minimize damage.

Six picked up the Book and her bag. She brushed her hand over the title 'Edanna' before opening it up. The flyby showed nothing but ocean for the first few second and then revealed something that took her a moment to identify as a plant, a tree, to be more specific, growing right out of the water. It was huge, with a dizzying network of branches sticking in and out of an apparently hollow trunk.

Frowning, she wrapped an arm around ED-E and they Linked away.

**2**

"Oh dear god, please tell me there aren't any plant people here."

"?.)$"

"My only comfort is that I doubt one of Atrus' lessons in writing Ages is live combat training. That, and my holorifle. Mustn't forget that." Six adjusted her bandanna.

They were standing on a gigantic branch facing a weird pink plant that hung down from green roots growing right out of the branch above them, and across a gap too big to cross was a collection of thick brown vines hanging down.

"This plant, it almost looks like a lens in the center here." Six walked up to the large pink flower and put her eyes to the clear organic membrane on the back of it. The view had a bluish tint to it and she could see passed the vines across the way. Beside a thick glob of sap the size of a desk chair was the a Linking Book held on display by thin green vines. "Hey, I found our way out. The problem is getting to it. Blood-Nap could cut down those vines, but not from here."

"~{^ != *)&/"

"You're right, there's got to be another way. If we complete Atrus' lesson, it should lead back to the Book, right? Unless Saavedro changed that," she muttered the last bit and frowned. If she was going to get though this, she would have to think like both Atrus and Saavedro. That complicated things.

The two proceeded right along the branch they were on. The whitish wood of the tree formed something like a rounded hallway as they moved along, and Six was struck by the idea that the giant plant was just one big natural house for the tinier life living inside it. That was actually kind of neat.

"Did I remember to give you my camera before we left?" Six asked, her gaze darted from place to place, just trying to take everything in. Alive, all of it was alive. All of it was natural. A great sprawling garden. It was beautiful and strange all at the same time. But even as she admired the Age, she longed for home. The feeling of being out of place grew with every careful step and every inhale of clean air.

"^#!"

"Good," Six said and removed the beat up old CodacR9000 from ED-E's storage. She replaced it with her Big Book of Science so she wouldn't be weighed down. "Let me know if you see a good scenic spot for a picture."

ED-E beeped his agreement just as they came to another odd plant that grew from the great tree that supported the Age. Near its base was a thick collection of moss and green leaves. The plant itself went straight up with leaves that reminded her of drawings of bat wings that corkscrewed around the trunk all the way up to the peak.

"All of these smaller plants share a symbiotic relationship with the big tree we're in. I have never seen a plant that grows out of another plant instead of dirt. I'm going to have to give Atrus points for creativity. I'd never would have thought this up in a million years." Six sized up the corkscrew plant and said, "Think it'll hold my weight?"

"{]&*"

"Hm. Want to fly up and see if there's anything there?"

ED-E didn't reply, he merely followed the plant up. Six passed the short time waiting by digging out some of her anti-venom from her bag and moving it into a pouch on her vest. You never know.

"]/+"

"Another path? Thanks ED-E," Six said to him when he rejoined her.

She gingerly tested her weight on the corkscrew's leaves. It seemed like it would hold, but it would wobble an awful lot on the way up. Six pulled Blood-Nap out of her bag just incase she needed to latch onto something in a hurry before following the pseudo staircase upwards.

The Courier kept close to the trunk as she slowly inched her way along. Falling would be a complete disaster that she wasn't willing to risk. ED-E floated close by for moral support as she tried not to look down.

When she reached the top, she practically jumped off the dumb plant. What the hell? Atrus, maybe a little less creativity, and more common sense. Would a real staircase or ladder had been so hard? Goddamn it. You'd think he'd childproof the Age before sending his kids here for lessons. Her dad would have. Dad would have roped off areas and insisted on physically coming along and teaching the lesson in person, not just for safety, but to make sure she didn't misunderstand anything.

ED-E beeped at her, breaking her train of thought.

"What?"

He beeped again. She looked up and wandered over to where he was hovering.

"It's a plant shaped basin with water in it. Wonderful," she said drily, still upset. Six let her eyes follow the vine laying in the pool of water up to the top of the corkscrew. Was it feeding it?

Six shook her head and followed the curving tunnel the tree made. As she was about to turn the corner, a loud flutter of wings and an animal cry nearly startled her into losing her footing. She spun around in time to see a giant bird fly around to the other side of the tree.

She climbed up a chest high ledge to see if she could get a view of the bird and was rewarded by the sight of its nest across a vast gap in the branches. She'd never reach it even if she wanted to. The blue bird was feeding its baby something that looked like roots of some sort. Beside Six was another one of those pink lens flowers. She looked through it and confirmed what she had already observed, but she did see that the nest was over the 'room' holding the Linking Book.

"I wonder what kind of evolutionary process could cause these things to have a natural telescope. What purpose does it serve to the plant?"

ED-E replied with his version of a shrug. Six only pondered the question a moment longer before giving a shrug of her own and they moved on.

The bird took flight again as they were passing another corkscrew, this one had it's leaves folded up, and a large bulb filled with liquid near a dried basin. The bird circled around the level of the tree they were on. It spotted them and swept down to land a few meters from her. It tilted its head at her in curiosity in much the same way the geckos did whenever she approached. Six raised her hand up to the bird who bowed its head and let her give it a quick pat.

It tilted its head again and then took to the sky once more. Six waved at it before turning to say something to ED-E. She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a strangled gasp when she felt a force knock into her shoulders and she was lifted high up into the air.

"ED-EEEEEEEEEEE!" Six shrieked. She managed to refrain from kicking and struggling out of fear that the bird would drop her. Looking down proved to be a terrible mistake. All she could see were the branches of the main tree and the tops of tiny plants. The ground was nowhere to be found. Her heart pounded in her chest, her stomach threatened to rebel.

It swept over its nest and dropped her a few meters from the baby bird. She landed on her knees, and resisted the urge to kiss the floor of the nest. The baby approached her curiously, and Six pushed some of the roots near her towards it. It chirped and hopped away with the root in its beak, curiosity averted.

The parent bird-who Six suddenly decided she was going to call Pat-cawed and seemed to gesture behind her with its beak. Six looked and saw a steep and smooth passage down. The only way to traverse it would probably be to slide. She decided to just bite the bullet and go. She sat and pushed herself down the tunnel. Six desperately tried to slow her descent on the curving slide with her knife so she wouldn't fly off the ledge. She'd take a good old fashioned firefight any day over all of this. She was made for solid ground, not slides and bird rides.

It led down to where she had seen the Linking Book. She hit the bottom with a grunt escaping her, and was immediately met with the sight of strands of leaves inside hardened sap. That wouldn't have normally caught her attention, but the pattern looked deliberate. She would have scanned it into her pip-boy, but the resolution was always low on the device. She'd never see the pattern in the sap on it. Six pulled the camera out of her bag and snapped a quick photo. It printed and she examined the image before placing it between the pages of Saavedro's journal.

She got up as she heard Pat fly away again above her. Six brushed off her jeans and went over to the Linking Book. It led back to the tower room in J'nanin with the holographic imager. She bagged it, placing it next to the Book back to Tomahna.

With Blood-Nap clasped in both hands, she began to hack down the vines in the way. Had she brought Knock-Knock it probably would have been more ideal, but she had issues using the axe for long periods. Hell, she had issues using the damn knife as it was.

The vines fell away and she grabbed the Hyperbreeder and fired it harmlessly towards the sky.

"ED-E!" she shouted.

But instead of her companion showing up, Pat swooped through the opening she made and grabbed her again. It latched onto her shoulders and practically tossed her over to where she had ended up when they had first Linked in. She looked up in time to see Pat flying down further into the tree like nothing had happened.

"I can't decide whether to thank it, or curse it."

It struck her though how helpful that detour was. How intelligent was that bird? Or maybe it wasn't the bird's idea at all? Maybe it was something else? Arcade had once theorized that her affinity with animals to be a form of psyker ability after he had witnessed her playing with a nightstalker like it was just an overgrown puppy. Most psykers had been wiped out with The Master, but some still popped up every now and again. Their abilities wildly different from one another. One person might be an electrokinetic, another might be able to supposedly divine the future. Unfortunately, no one knew enough about psykers to test it. She just had to accept that she could make most animals roll over onto their backs for a tummy rub, or get them to help her in a fight. It was always funny to see the looks on Legionaries' faces when their hounds turned against them.

ED-E appeared from the route that led to the first corkscrew plant, beeping frantic gibberish she couldn't translate. She got back to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster. She straightened her vest and bandanna, then moving passed ED-E, only pausing to give her friend a winning smile like she had planned that whole thing and she hadn't screamed high enough to shatter glass earlier.

They made the journey back to where Six had been grabbed, making a second trip up the perilous corkscrew. She was feeling better about going up it now due to having survived the impromptu flight with the bird. If she could withstand that, she could withstand anything.

The two made it back unmolested by anymore wildlife. She pointed up the path ahead and raised her eyebrows at ED-E, "Did you happen to search that way while I was gone."

"&),`^_ #]./ *"

"We don't need a second Book back to J'nanin. Let's leave that there just in case something happens to the one I've got. Anything else up that way?"

"/."

"Alright, than down it is."

Six looked at the bulb filled with liquid, then at the dry basin, and then followed the vine lying in it up to the top of the corkscrew. She punctured the bulb with Blood-Nap, the liquid inside gushed out into the basin. The vine immediately began sucking up the water and the corkscrew's leaves unfolded. Not feeling particularly enthusiastic, Six wrapped her arm around the trunk and slid down the plant to go deeper into the catacombs the tree made up. ED-E kept up with her, making sure she would accidentally fall off the side.

She had misjudged the length of the corkscrew and by the time she reached the bottom, her vision was spinning and she couldn't walk straight. Six just managed to hold onto the contents of her stomach, but it took her eight minutes of just sitting down with her hands covering her face before she even attempted to move again. She was already sick of Edanna.

The branch she was now standing on was more rounded and she had to brace herself on the 'wall' to ensure she wouldn't slip and fall.

Smaller, thinner trees that weren't too much taller than the height ED-E hovered at began appearing along their route. Trees growing from a tree. She took out her camera and snapped a picture. She knew a couple people who would get a kick out of it.

" [^**(!# ]"

Six went over to see what got ED-E so excited, and smiled when she peered down into the filled basin. An aquatic creature with reddish bioluminescent patterns was swimming around in circles inside of it. She watched it zap the roots sticking into the water. The flowers they were attached to danced in the electricity. It was like those electric eels she had once read about, but it looked kind of like a cross between that, a squid, and a ray.

The sun was scarce now, barely making it through the vegetation to reach them. Only weak beams graced them with light. She'd have thought only fungus would be able to survive, but there were flowers. They must have evolved to draw energy from other sources. Like the flowers getting it from the eel/ray/squid's natural static discharge when it in turn fed off the roots.

Symbiosis. That had to be the lesson behind the Age. What else could it be? Maybe cause and effect if you wanted to be more general. She could imagine that both would be something important to keep in mind when writing Ages. Though, she didn't see why he needed a whole Age to teach his sons about the concept. She had learned about in the Vault via textbook. It wasn't exactly an esoteric notion that required a physical example. She couldn't imagine that Achenar and Sirrus needed to see it to understand it.

As they continued on, Six saw plants displaying different color bioluminescence, mostly oranges and purples, and offering her light for the path. She was entirely focused on negotiating the increasingly difficult terrain on the branches when ED-E alerted her that he had found more pages.

Six picked them up and held them up to the light provided by the nearby glowing beetle attached to the wall.

"He's talking about destroying some Narayan poetry Atrus wrote somewhere," Six explained. She frowned and reread the part about the sap. Was the pattern she took a picture of one of the poems he 'desecrated'? She shrugged and continued, "He says he wants to introduce floating rocks from one Age into the soil of another. ED-E remind me to mention this to Atrus." She flipped through the pages one more time before placing them with the others. She adjusted the strap on her bag before setting off again. "There's some drawings in there of the cylinder with the flakes we could make float, remember? A small scale of what he was hoping to do with the floating rocks?"

The pair stopped again when they found a branch to the other side of the tree. Growing on it was same fruit that inflated when it heard the furry, squeaking creature in J'nanin eating. Six placed her boot on the branch in preparation to cross when a pained cry carried up to her from somewhere far below. She looked over the edge of the ledge, but all she saw were more plant life obscuring the view to the bottom.

"That sounded like Pat. The bird," she elaborated for ED-E's benefit. "Is there a predator here?"

ED-E couldn't give her a definitive answer. Six checked to make sure her holorifle was loaded and ready before she crossed over the bridge. She needed to keep her eyes open.

On her way across, she spotted something that looked man made somewhere ahead. Like a small tent, or a cage made of wood and cloth.

After they went through a tunnel they come onto a plant they hadn't seen yet. It was oval shaped and about ED-E's size. The thing had bioluminescence shining under thin leaves. Six touched it and the leaves peeled back to show its glowing core that shined brighter than some electronic lamps she had seen in the past, but that wasn't the only thing that happened. A large rolled up leaf unraveled out over the drop off.

Six blinked and touched the glowing plant again. It shut at her touch to cover the light and the leaf rolled back up. She did it again one more time to extend the leaf again.

"[*^%~; &`_-(} ? "

"The lack of sunlight, I would guess. The, uh, big leaf gets its energy from this natural sunlamp here. When the lamp is closed, it must conserve energy by rolling up, and extends to get as much as possible when its open. Or something. Why are you asking me? You know I'm not a botanist."

"`#: )"

"Walk across it? Are you crazy? Why would I do that? There's no way that supports my weight."

"#(-;?% +~[$ *^!?, &!*"

"You sure?"

"^*!"

"If I die, I want you to arrange for the King to sing at my funeral. I want singing and dancing, or I'm going to return in the next life as a fire gecko and get your chassis so sooty it'll never wash off."

Six gingerly put her foot on the leaf and found it stiff as a board. She slowly began to walk along it with ED-E keeping close by. She paused in front of a vine shaped suspiciously like something a trapeze artist would use. She placed a hand on it and it dropped down further so it was more near her knees.

Just across the gap was that man made thing she had spotted earlier. Now that she was closer she could see that it was attached to a pulley system. Definitely a trap.

" *, =:&%"

"What? No! I am now swinging across on this thing."

"[...^|!]&%`{)"

"I don't care if Achenar and Sirrus must have done it. If they decided to attack a deathclaw with nothing but a switchblade that doesn't mean I'm going to imitate them. This is just dumb."

"!`}*%/"

"Not a chance. Why don't you fly over and tell me what you see."

" %~_=: '(]"

ED-E did as he was told without saying more. She watched him investigate the pulley system and scan into a tiny nook in the tree just under a fruit tree. She shifted her feet as she waited for him to report back. It didn't take him long. He came back and told her that it was a trap for the same furry creature as the one back in J'nanin.

"If it's native here, than what was it doing in J'nanin? It is highly unlikely the exact same species evolved on two separate Ages. That and the weird inflating plant thing. If they don't belong on J'nanin then those are both going to have to removed from there soon before they spread beyond control. That has to be Saavedro's doing. One of those changes he mentioned in his journal."

Six pointed down a long ways away to another path in the distance, passed the branch with the fruit on it that they had crossed earlier, she had spotted while ED-E was by the animal trap. "Now, would you go see where that goes to, please. And if there's anyway to get there from here."

",,%~)"

ED-E flew towards the ledge and Six rolled her eyes. He could call her a coward all he wanted to, but just because she was in a tree didn't means she was going to turn into Tarzan.

Behind her she heard a tiny little squeak. She turned and saw one of those furry animals looking at her curiously beside the trap. Six smiled at it and held out her hand. It disappeared between a small gap in the branches, and Six refocused her attention on ED-E. He had reached the path she had seen and she watched him move out of sight.

She heard another noise, this time closer, and she looked down to see the animal moving towards her on the leaf cautiously. Six crouched and held out her hand to it again. The thing sniffed her fingers inquisitively and allowed her to pet it.

"I'm going to call you Snugly. Hello, Snugly. Nice to meet you. I'm Six." She carefully picked it up and held it like it was a puppy. It sniffed at her hair as she smoothed down its soft white fur, laughing at her new friend.

The bird cawed and a commotion startled them into finding its source. Moments later she saw the bird fly off in a hurry back up towards its nest, dropping blue feathers like leaves on the wind. Six soothed Snugly, stroking a hand up and down its side until it stopped shaking.

Snugly kept her company for the time that ED-E was gone. By the time she saw him again, twelve minutes had gone by, according to her pip-boy clock. He flew over the gap back to her, going under the bridge they had crossed earlier. Snugly perked up and then broke free from her arms and ran off.

"You scared off my friend."

"{&)"

"So, what was over there?," she asked.

"*!%^,`':_! ;/*~ $[]=?"

Her eyebrows raised, "How'd you get it free?"

"/)-~`"

"Well, at least your finally using your Arc Welder for more than just jump starting batteries." Best upgrade ever. Worth the whole month it took to give it to him without compromising his Gauss cannon.

"#]:"

"Uh huh. And there was no other way to get there?"

"?/"

"Fuck."

".^ #!"

"Shut up," Six demanded without any real heat in her voice. She squinted over at the path and then dismissed it with a shooing motion. She shrugged, trying to put as much regret as she could into it. "Well, that's a damn shame because that bridge over there won't let me reach that path with this vine. I guess we'll just have to find another way further down. There has to be one. I wish I had thought to bring some rope..." she trailed off when she caught sight of Snugly at the edge of the bridge. It looked at her for only a moment before running across it. The fruit on it expanded into the size of beach balls and the wood shattered from the strain, collapsing the bridge.

Her jaw dropped.

"!#"

"Shut _up_."

Still very much aware of how bad of an idea it was, she grabbed hold of the vine. She tested her weight on it and was disappointed when it didn't break. She sighed and retied her bandanna.

"Alright. I guess I'm doing this."

Six gripped the vine tight, took a deep breath and pushed off the leaf. She swung through the air on the vine, wind whistling in her ears, suddenly feeling like Grognak the Barbarian. Now all she needed was the Virgin Eater and a pure maiden to save.

Her daydreams were cut off when ED-E played his battle music and the vine lurched. She went from swinging to falling in no time at all. ED-E beeped in alarm and flew faster than she had ever seen to race her descent so he could get under her. She fell on him, but her weight was too much for him to remain afloat. They both tumbled down through leaves and branches, but at a slower speed than just free falling.

ED-E struggled to maneuver them as they dropped. It was only because of him that she survived. He and her leg took the brunt of the impact on the largest branch ED-E could get to. She more felt than heard the bone shatter. ED-E rolled down into a dry basin, unconscious.

She upended her bag, spilling the contents everywhere on the perfectly carved stairs they had landed on. Six snagged up her doctor's kit and practically tore it open. She injected some Med-X before setting the bone with a medical brace. When she was sure that she had done it right, she stabbed her thigh with a Stimpak.

When that was taken care of, she laid back and let the medicine do its job. She looked down the stairs towards ED-E and knew he would wake up again soon on his own. Six scanned her surroundings and she caught sight of the vine she had been swinging on. Six reached out and reeled it in until she came over the end that had broken away.

It was a clean cut all the way through.

ED-E shot up into the air like someone had woken him with an air horn. He spun around until he caught sight of her. He flew closer, up the stairs, and she held up the end of the vine.

"Deliberate."

"%!"

"Did you detect anyone before?"

"{$~!'`: (*+ &/ "

"They were there and then they were gone, just like that?"

"$&!"

"Just before we fell?"

"!^&~/"

"Alright, just before I fell and you selflessly caught me."

" $*]+_!"

"No, I'll freak Atrus and Kat out if I go back with a broken leg. I took a Stimpak, it'll be fine in a bit." She held up her hand to him, "Come here, pally. Let me make sure you're okay."

ED-E sat beside her on the ground as she checked over his insides. Nothing seemed to have been jarred loose. She let him go and he flew around to catalogue their surroundings and search for danger. Six picked up her canteen to take a conservative drink from it. She turned it over in her hand and brushed her thumb over the large yellow numbers for Vault 13 on the front. It, an armored Vault 13 jumpsuit, and a modified 10mm had come into her possession in New Mexico. It was part of the 'Treasure' that Enclave deserter had helped her find. He—former Lieutenant Watkins, that is—had sworn up and down it belonged to the so-called legendary Vault Dweller who defeated The Master. She didn't know if that were true, but he had let her keep the stuff as he had been more interested in the experimental flame thrower design...and the whiskey...and the sugar bombs. Wat was always a guarantee for a fun time.

She gingerly checked on her leg. There was pain, but it was no longer broken. She stood up slowly. Concerned beeping came from ED-E. He hovered around her like a mother hen, but she waved him off. Six gathered up her things and then turned back to her friend.

"What have you found?"

She followed him down the stairs that either Atrus or Saavedro must have carved into the branch. At the bottom, in the dried basin ED-E had fallen into earlier were thick thorny vines. She followed them back up and in the distance, far above them, was the pod plant ED-E had described to her that had trapped the bird. It was like a bigger, meaner version of the one they had found in J'nanin.

"Holy shit. That asshole introduced an invasive species." She rubbed her forehead, "ED-E make absolutely sure that I do not forget to mention this thing to Atrus. This has to go ASAP." This one little introduction could strangle the whole Age to death. Snugly, the ray, Pat, and baby bird would be out of a home if they survived the collapsing of their ecosystem. If Saavedro thinks the destruction of his Age gives him the right to destroy others without repercussions than he's got something else coming to him. As cliche as Six knew it was, two wrongs really don't make a right.

ED-E led her around the basin, up a branch that didn't have stairs carved out of it. Around the back of it was a machine that looked like a small TV attached to a pole. She pressed the single oversized button and Saavedro's face materialized on it.

"What's the matter, Atrus, can't remember how thing's work? Yet you explained this class so well when we spoke of it on Narayan. 'I want Sirrus and Achenar to learn everything they can, Saavedro! First from Amateria, Edanna, Voltaic, and finally from Narayan. When my boys come to see your people, I want them to see Narayan's traditions at work, so they can see how civilization can balance an Age.' Do you know what they did when they finally came to us? You never came back. After class was over, you took your boys away and you never came back. Sirrus and Achenar did." The recording ended with Saavedro's face fading away in myriad of colors.

Six scratched the back of her head, "Why? I wonder. Why did they go back to Narayan? Was it just random raiding of an Age they already knew about, or was there something else?"

"/%/"

"Yeah, I could be overestimating them." Six shrugged, "If I don't figure it out myself, I'll ask them when I see them."

Six limped on and stopped at another one of those rolled up leaves, but this one didn't have a natural sunlamp nearby. Out of sheer desperation, she tried her pip-boy light, but to no success. She threw up her hands and went back the way she came. She had decided somewhere in Vault 22 that she despised plants. Edanna wasn't really turning her opinion around.

She went back around the basin to go up the stairs. She came to a stop again in front of a painting done on a portion of the 'wall' that someone had painstakingly smoothed. She held up her light to it before walking on in disinterest. She wasn't big on art. Most of what she had seen was propaganda or two hundred year old advertisements, it kind of ruined the whole subject for her and everyone else in the Wasteland who wasn't a Follower.

She looked down both sides of the crossroads before heading left. ED-E beeped when they came across another large plant. This one had lavender petals and a quick perusal of it told her that it was another one of those lens flowers. She looked through it, but all it seemed to be was a natural formed telescope.

It was becoming more and more tempting to just go back to J'nanin and find one of the other Ages, but she wanted to at least reach the bottom. That way she would have observed the ecology on every level and see if Saavedro added anymore invasive species. She wasn't going to go over every inch of the Ages, but she was going to see enough to give Atrus a basic report.

She looked though every lavender flower until she found one that had sunlight hitting it. She turned it and the light streamed through the other side of it in a concentrated beam and lit up another lens plant. Six was tired, hurt, and irritated, but she could still add two together. A good old fashioned relay system was in order.

After some back and forth between the flowers, she finally got sunlight to hit the leaf to get it to unroll into a hollow branch. Her leg was feeling better by the time she reached the leaf again. ED-E insisted on going first and she followed him up the steep incline using strong mushrooms as handholds.

At the top, they found a red flower with a lavender one nearby, but nothing else. She went back down the branch cursing Atrus for his choice of using Edanna as a Lesson Age. Did he give his kids a map with the correct route to take, or something? Was she doing this the hard way?

She was becoming paranoid too, her eyes darted to every little movement in the foliage and to the radar screen on her pip-boy.

Halfway down the branch she saw that there was another one that grew into the one she was in and went straight. Six climbed into it, ignoring ED-E's protest. She crawled through it, and discovered more pages from Saavedro's journal. Six curled up in the hollow branch to read it, a short break was in order anyway. She didn't want to overtax her still healing leg.

When she was finished reading, a sigh escaped her and she placed them with the others. It was interesting to hear how Atrus met Saavedro, but it didn't answer any relevant questions she had.

At the end of the hollow branch was another one of those trapeze vines. Six signaled ED-E to wait as she stepped onto the vine and let it lower her down a level. The sound of waves was louder, and she didn't have to find a break in the tree to know that she was closer to the base. She could even smell the ocean through over the heavy scent of fauna.

As it turned out, she wasn't closer to the bottom, she was at the bottom. The humidity was so heavy it made the conditions absolutely miserable. It felt like a swamp.

A few years back, maybe four, she had visited Louisiana, and wished she hadn't. Atchafalaya Swamp had been worse than Point Lookout by far. The ghoul and mutant population had been a high one, some of them were friendly, most of them weren't. The humans that did live there were mostly cannibals and plain crazies. It was one of the few places she actually used the Transportalponder to get away from. She had picked up a nasty illness and had been out of commission for a week. The Auto-Doc had to come up with a whole new type of medication to treat her with.

In short, she hated swamps.

She rubbed her face and groaned. Perfect. ED-E offered his sympathies from behind her. Six managed a small smile in his direction before balancing on the thin branch to go forward.

A house sized purple blossom sat in the center of a calm pool of water. She carefully searched the pool, but saw nothing like crocodiles sitting in wait. She hadn't actually seen any real predators in Edanna. Her mysterious would-be murderer didn't count. The Age was mostly plants with only a couple of animals sparsely populating it, and all of those had been herbivores. Most healthy ecosystems she knew of had at least one apex predator in it to keep the animal population in check, but it seemed one wasn't needed. Maybe some of the pollen the plants sent off were toxic to animals that made their home in the tree? Or they all had brief life cycles? Or Saavedro killed all the predators in another attempt at senseless sabotage, all in the name of making Atrus miserable. The latter was more likely. Edanna could very well expect a population explosion soon if that were the case.

Against her desire to do anything but, she explored the swampy base of the great tree. She was careful not to get into the water. Falling into swamp water was what had gotten her so sick in Louisiana.

They found another giant blossom, this one open and had flying bugs feeding on stems sticking out of the very top. The inside of the blossom had things that looked like what Pat had been feeding baby bird. That was one mystery solved. Beyond that, there didn't appear to be anything else.

Six wrote in her pip-boy notes under Edanna about the suspected invasive species of plant and the suspicious lack of predators. She took the J'nanin Book out her bag and they Linked away, making sure the Book would drop on a dry and flat surface.

Chapter Three End

Up Next: Exploring Amateria

**Author's Note:**

I love the Animal Friend perk. It just makes certain things less painful. Big Mountain comes to mind. All of those nightstalkers...

I wanted to have this chapter done earlier, but I got distracted by...stuff. Yeah, let's go with that. Stuff.

It's going to be another long wait for the next chapter for much the same reason it was for this one. It's going to be the entirety of Amateria and that's going to take a bit to write out. For those of you who find me just writing about what happens on the Lesson Ages boring, don't worry. After Amateria, it'll be much different. I have something special planned for Voltaic and Narayan will also be greatly changed for reasons that should be obvious by now. After that? All new stuff!

Snugly the Squee and I thank you for reading this far,

_Home On the Wastes_


	5. Killing Our Conscience

**The Cries From Dead Worlds**

**Chapter Four: Villains and Vagrants Are Killing Our Conscience**

"This drawing doesn't even look close, does it?"

"/?"

"Why doesn't the dumb scanner read photos?"

"\^&!^) .[ &#~..?-"

"I wasn't asking for an explanation. I can guess for myself, thank you very much."

"?(/#"

"Yeah, I'm just gonna hack the damn thing. Are you going to let me use your multi-tools or am I gonna have to use my own kit?"

**2**

The blue surface of the scanner glowed and the three projectors lit up around the room. At the same time, the lattice work egg shot up from the hole, but remained closed. Six grinned up at Saavedro's holographic face on the ceiling, he looked down at her with spiteful happiness.

"Not so easy, is it, Atrus? Running like a rat through a maze. Looking for some sign that will help you save your world. Is it over here? Is it over there? Is it some place I can't find?" His manic smile faded and he sobered, "Sirrus and Achenar didn't care about saving Narayan. All that talk about 'fixing instabilities,' rewriting the age so we would be free to live our lives that was just to hide the truth of why they had come. But we believed their lies, Atrus. So we abandoned our traditions, forgetting that those traditions were what was keeping Narayan alive. And when the lattice tree started to die I followed them here, to tell them what they had done. And they laughed. They said that they would never fix Narayan. They said that they had already taken everything worth saving! So my dear old friend, Atrus. I brought you to this place where your education begins. Find the remaining two symbols and then come see what your boys did to Narayan."

The projectors shut off and Six twisted her wrench around in her hands, watching as light reflected off the metal. Aside from not wanting to fix Narayan, Achenar and Sirrus couldn't actually do it. They didn't know enough about the Art to even know what the hell they were talking about.

"I just remembered Griffon. Have I ever told you about Griffon, the ghoul who sold irradiated water and called it Aqua Cura? I was just reminded of him suddenly." She began to gather up her tools, "Come on, that's enough cheating for now."

**3**

Amateria. An Age of paths and rails. Or it seemed that way to Six as she stood underneath the awning at the Linking sight. On the horizon angry storm clouds gathered over the water, lightning sparking in their depths. The purple and orange sunset offered her dim light to work by so she could examine a hexagon panel situated beside a break in the tracks leading up to the gigantic main building.

The architecture reminded her of pictures she had seen of China. Very eastern, but somehow she doubted that was Atrus' intention when he had it built. Some other culture on some other Age must have had a very similar building style. Improbable, but not impossible. Atrus had told her a bit about the Great Tree of Possibilities. Infinite worlds in an infinite universe in infinite dimensions. Theoretical quantum mechanics mixed in with the old Norse belief of Yggdrasil. Fascinating stuff, and a good chunk of her letters to Atrus had been made up on that subject alone. Together, they had determined her Earth was an alternate and future instance of his Earth. The Art didn't really allow people to travel freely between the different instances of the same Age, you change the Descriptive Book and all the Linking Books change with it, but Big Mountain's portal had been designed to do exactly that. Atrus was fascinated. His mind had immediately latched onto what could be learned from such a device and how it might transfer to the Art. He had been more than happy to lend his advice to Arcade, Veronica, Raul, and her as they tried to stabilize the portal. It would have taken them a lot longer without him.

Six gave up on trying to randomly find the code for the panel for now, and started on exploring. Being on actual ground again was making her relax. She was already feeling good again. The cool sea breeze blowing away the horrid memory of the humid atmosphere from Edanna. Amateria would be perfect if that storm would stay at bay.

She regarded the three towers in the water separated with the same amount of space between them, and wondered if the tracks that connected them together had been destroyed. It looked like they had once been attached to the main railing leading down from the big building's entrance. Passed those towers was a short stretch of man made land she'd have to swim to if she wanted to get over there. For now she had no reason to, so she headed out across the series of bridges to the left of the Linking spot.

ED-E was silent beside her, had been since they had left Edanna, only answering questions when she asked. The vine incident had upset him more than it had her. He seemed to think his sensors were malfunctioning, but Six had already checked him over twice. He was fine. Something else was at work. All they could do was keep their eyes open until they could get back to Tomahna and pick Atrus' brain. See if he had any theories.

She ducked into a cave that was anything but natural. Stone cut in hexagon shapes made up the floor and glowing blue crystals gave the impression that they were growing out of cracks in the corners. She descended the staircase to get to the rest of the cave and looked down the right and left paths. Left went back outside.

Six stepped out onto the boardwalk over the water, suddenly being reminded of Channelwood. That had been the hardest of the three Ages she had cleaned up for Atrus. Navigating the bottom level had been fine, but the rope bridges in the trees had been a nightmare. She might have had to indulge in some of Sirrus' wine while up there, but no one could prove that. She looked up, almost expecting to see buildings high above her, but all she saw was a railing with a gigantic wooden ball resting on it, poised to roll at any time.

On one side of the boardwalk was deep blue ocean, on the other was a cluster of small pools filled with stale green water. Probably rich in minerals.

"\+^(~,*"

Six turned around and looked back up at the wooden ball.

"Yeah, you're right. Thanks for reminding me," she smiled at him, knowing she'd be lost without him. How long would it have taken her to remember the scales back in J'nanin? Six brought up her pip-boy and dug through her notes until she found the appropriate one. "Okay, let's see what Atrus has in store for us."

"?*#( \_+$"

"Yeah, Saavedro too."

Halfway along the path was a control panel, she fiddled with it, but it didn't do anything until she pulled a lever near her feet. The control panel and the platform she was standing on wobbled, then elevated. Six looked around and saw the platform was levitating because of four glowing stones attached to the corners. She looked up from the panel to see a gigantic metal chute with a single large wheel under it.

She tried the control panel again, moving a slider from left to right. The wheel rolled to correspond to the new position. Six moved the slider back to the center and the wheel obeyed. She pulled a small lever located on the panel. A structure with the same glowing stones shot into the air located roughly where the main building was passed the artificial hexagon mountain. It floated in the air and formed a ball out of thin air. It dropped it down before the structure dropped back out of sight.

She heard a screeching sound and Six knew the ball was rolling down the length of railing. The ball, made of a translucent white material, came around a corner and nudged the wooden ball into action. The wood one rolled into a scale at the bottom of the chute, weighing it down. She squinted, at it. It almost looked like something was reflecting the sun on the far side. The white one came around and flew into the open chute, smashing to pieces instantly.

Six lowered the platform, drumming her fingers against the control panel. A sigh escaped her lips, and she continued down the boardwalk. At the end of it was a small building with a sliding door. She had to duck down to get inside and round a thin partition.

Half of a wooden ball was hanging on a chain suspended from above. It went through a hole in the ceiling, attaching it to the giant chute above.

It was just one big gigantic scale. One that needed balancing.

**4**

ED-E's encouraging beep accompanied the pull of the lever. She grinned wide as the wooden ball moved into place on the scale and the white one rolled right on passed the chute unharmed. The control panel folded up and showed her a video of a place she recognized as the disconnected towers near the Linking spot. A short track rose up from the water, connecting the end tower and the middle one together, before dropping right back down. The control panel closed immediately following the video, revealing a hexagonal shape on the back with a pattern of smaller hexagons inside. Six snapped a picture of it with her pip-boy and then lowered the platform for the last time.

"What was the point of all of that beyond getting the pattern? I'm trying to see it, but it's just not making any sense to me. If Atrus was trying to teach his sons about scales, then there are far less complicated ways to do it," Six said, more to herself than to ED-E. Again, something else that needed that big of an example to teach. The whole thing could have been taught with a much smaller model without ever having to leave home.

"_~:"

Six took a moment to identify where ED-E's beeps had come from and found him still in the alcove he had explored earlier when he had told her about the hidden crystal piece in the wooden ball.

"Okay, great. Is there a way for me to get up there?" she asked.

"^*`!%`),^"

"Wait for me, please."

She went back into the caves and it didn't take her long to find the other end of the elevator ED-E had told been talking about. She was honestly astounded to discover that it worked. That was a first. Atrus' elevators were usually broken in some way. She ascended without problem.

There wasn't much to see from the little alcove beyond perfectly cut stone and the wooden ball poised back on its railing. The pages ED-E had found lay tucked away in a sheath of rock. She scanned the single diary page, and rolled her eyes.

"I was half right about that carnivorous pod plant thing. It was a genetically modified variant of something that does or did exist in Edanna. I didn't see anything else like it, which is why I immediately thought it wasn't native. Doesn't change that it's invasive, we just know where it came from now." She put the page away and turned to ED-E, "Do you suppose I could convince Saavedro to tell me the secrets of grafting plants? I mean, I know how to cross breed them, but I bet the Narayan people's way to do it is different." Maybe she'd have something to take back to the Biological Research Station. Barry would find it interesting. Might even stop the innuendos for five minutes. Might.

"&&^"

She had a feeling that was what he was going to say. She frowned and went back to the elevator.

"Well, let's go try this pattern."

Six rubbed her eyes and then searched her bag. A single box of sugar bombs lay tucked away under her spare set of clothes she had wrapped around three bottles of sarsaparilla. She tore open the box top and shoved a handful of cereal into her mouth. Nothing quite like a tooth rotting amount of sugar. She flatly ignored her pip-boy's geiger counter telling her she was ingesting rads. Three rads were hardly anything to write home about. Besides, she had anti-radiation chems on her and an easy way back to Big Mountain's Auto-Doc. Not that she'd need it. While the D'ni had been around for thousands of years, they hadn't discovered the power of the atom, having had other energy sources. Plus, it was only 1815 on Atrus' Earth. It would be a long time before she would have to worry about radiation poisoning on a visit to Tomahna.

The sugar bombs were stored away again when they arrived back at the Linking sight. Six wiped her hands on her jeans and went over to examine the hexagon panel again. She pushed in the tiles matching the pattern on it, and beside her a trap door on the tracks closed making a dubious bridge to the next hexagon panel.

"I'm going to need another code." She looked passed the second panel, "Make that two. There are three panels here and three bridges I need to make to get to that building."

Six walked away, the sound of the trap door slamming open behind her making her steps falter. Were they timed based or was there a sensor that detected when someone walked away? That was kind of important to know.

ED-E beeped and Six went over to where he was hovering over a ledge. She leaned over to peer down and saw a rope ladder down that wasn't visible if you weren't looking directly at it. Would a couple of those have been so hard to add to Edanna?

She climbed down to the boardwalk below. Six and ED-E made their way between pillars made of dark stone that had eroded away at the places they met the water showing a glowing crystalline core. She looked up and saw flowing lines illuminated in the same bluish color. If she were to cut the stone away would it float?

Six had stopped to take a sip from her canteen when ED-E started playing his battle music. She capped the canteen with a quick twist of her wrist. It hit the ground and bounced into the calm water in her haste to get her Compliance Regulator. Wasteland justice didn't apply here after all.

ED-E didn't seem to care because as soon as she had her hand on her weapon, he fired a shot of his Gauss cannon back towards where they had come.

"Stop!" Six shouted. She slapped a hand on ED-E's chassis even as she aimed the Regulator towards where he had fired.

There was nothing there.

"What? What was it?"

"^!?_$#!(}"

"Calm down, I believe you. Tell me what it was?" she asked, still keeping an eye on the singed stone where ED-E shot had impacted harmlessly.

"%`':)-} (&,/*"

"So my attempted murder followed us, huh? Alright ED-E, keep alert because god knows I can't. Just, uh, we ask question before we start shooting. I'll hide a body, but I don't want to have to."

She fished out her canteen from the water and gestured for ED-E to follow her again. They got back on solid land. Her boots squished on damp, mossy stone as she looked around, her stun gun still in her hand. Six pulled open a wooden gate, expecting it to be locked, and was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't. In front of several worn down and moss covered stone pillars was another platform with a lever. They had found the next of Atrus' puzzles.

"_~:"

She turned and looked around the ground for the pages ED-E found. Six found them laying in the corner of the 'room' they were in. She sat down beside them and pulled out her box of sugar bombs again to munch on while she read.

"I think that's the second mention of a shield," she said. "He says that nothing can be alive passed it. But he also keeps talking about a 'fog' that consumes him, makes him forget. I'd have to actually talk to him to properly diagnose him, but my three guesses are: PTSD, PTED, and/or catatonic schizophrenia." Her dad had not trained her to be a psychologist, but none of those were exactly rare in the Wasteland. You begin to recognize the symptoms after awhile. "I'm gonna put my money on PTED."

Six put the pages in the book. She finished chewing on her snack and looked up at ED-E. "Sounds like Sirrus and Achenar started a civil war on Narayan. They showed the people Linking Books with less fragile Ages, and told them their world was flawed. That Atrus had written it that way to teach them how an Age shouldn't be. We've both seen something like this before." Six waved her hand as she specified, "Outsiders starting a civil war for their own profit."

And wasn't it always the same? Every single time. A smooth talking stranger would come into a struggling settlement and ignite infighting. The worst part was that the con artist never really needed to do much. You only required three things to start a fire: oxygen, fuel, and a spark. The con artist only had to bring the spark.

Without another word, she stood and went over to the platform to start on the puzzle. ED-E waited below, watching the gate. She pulled the lever and the glowing stones elevated the platform. From her new position she could see a giant structure rising out of the water. It looked like a scale with a tray on either side that appeared to be made to hold six balls each.

Six looked down at the control panel in front of her. There were two circles with five holes in them. The six alternating black and white sections reminded her of the symbol used for fallout shelters. She brushed her thumb over one of the holes in the left circle. It had a red peg lodged in it. She tried to dig it out, but it wouldn't budge.

"ED-E, I need your multi-tools up here."

**5**

Her eyes tracked the white ball as it safely jumped from one turn-table to another before meeting up with the track that allowed it to roll into the main building.

"Is this a piece of a giant Rube Goldberg machine? Is that what we're doing?" Six asked as she watched another video play on the closed control panel. Another set of tracks rose out the ocean and then fell back in. The panel folded and she snapped a picture of the second pattern. "Those are always fun."

She lowered the platform to join back up with ED-E who had been keeping a vigilant watch after he had helped her removed the stuck peg.

ED-E insisted on taking point and Six indulged him without complaint. She followed him down to a walkway in the water made of same hexagonal stones like in the cave. All around them were hexagons with indents on their tops that had water in them. The ones she was walking on were covered in slick moss that slowed her progress crossing. The hexagons eventually ended and all she could do to move forward was to climb up onto the track that went passed.

The track led to a large circle that had a translucent, vibrating field. She threw her empty box of sugar bombs through it. It fell through on the other side, seemingly undamaged.

ED-E flew through it before she could take the plunge herself.

He dropped. Six grabbed the thin pillar beside her and climbed around the side of the hoop, avoiding the field in the center. She managed to grab him before he could roll off into the water. There was a platform beside the ring, and Six sat down on it. She opened ED-E up and checked inside. The field had burned out a tesla coil. She clicked her tongue and set about fixing him.

**6**

"There, that's the last one," Six said. The control panel showed her another video and then the pattern she needed.

"&#~'?"

She smiled at ED-E. He had woken up after she fixed him with a spring in his step, so to speak. He had even surprised her by playing one of the few songs he kept in his database while she worked, he didn't often do that. 'Jingle, Jangle, Jingle' was always a pleasure to hear.

Her smile faded as she climbed back down the ladder. The new set of pages they had found came back to mind. Saavedro had been Sirrus and Achenar's teacher. Was them sparing his life a mercy or cruelty? Saavedro undoubtedly didn't see any mercy in what they had done, but Six had to wonder. When she had spared the lives of Atrus' sons it had been a little bit of both.

It was actually kind of funny that the brothers had suffered the same fate as the one they had consigned Saavedro to.

Six and ED-E walked back through the artificial cave to get back to the entrance of the main building. Once there, she entered the three patterns required to get to the large round door that served as the building's entrance. She had to pull the door and hold it open for ED-E. She slipped inside after him and let it close behind her.

Dozens of miscellaneous tracks lay scattered all throughout the building. A set of folded up stairs swung towards her and unfolded to allow her to get up to what looked to be a control center. Though that was perhaps a generous term. It was a small metal circle held up by thin metal cables with a chair on it, a TV, and a switch.

Six spun the odd, low to the ground chair around. Several hard cushions were held together by metals bars on the back. She sat down and found it as uncomfortable as it looked. Six was the type of person who sat on the edges of chairs with her back straight, this chair forced her to sit back just to prevent the bar from digging into her backside.

She turned back around to face the TV screen. She pressed the large button and to neither of their surprise, Saavedro's angry face appeared.

"Twenty years, Atrus. Twenty long years alone! They tied me to a post. They burned their Myst Linking Book in front of me. They took everything I had. My wife! My two baby girls! And then, when I finally made it back to Narayan and I saw...I saw..." His screaming rage drained away to be replaced with great sorrow. "It would have been better if I had died."

His face faded away.

"Did they murder his family? I wouldn't put it passed them, but he's never so much as mentioned that before now," Six asked, confused. You'd think he'd make a big point in mentioning that sort of thing to Atrus.

"?/"

"Hm."

Six flipped the switch and the cable pulled the chair up faster than ED-E could react. She heard him beep below her as he was left behind. The metal circle the chair rested on was locked into place. The platform she was now on rose in a wobbly fashion. When it stopped and stabilized in the air, she loosened her white knuckled grip on the chair cushions. She was in the structure that always shot into the air and formed the white balls for the three puzzles.

ED-E beeped as he rejoined her, the structure rising having opened a way for him to follow her. Six managed a weak smile and leaned forward to access the control panel in front of her. It opened and revealed nine circles in three rows of three. Each one had different colored lines on them matching the colors on the outer square. She recognized what it was. It was like on of the railroad children's games. You had to line up the track correctly.

She had been an expert at the puzzle as a kid, even earned herself an extra ration of bubblegum in a contest Mr. Brotch put together. It didn't take her long to line everything up. She grinned at ED-E who was floating just outside the awning over her head. Her good cheer disappeared as the structure came to life.

A piece of grooved metal came down and hovered over her head while a thing like a glaive appeared. The white stuff the balls were made out of formed around her as the glaive circled the chair. Once she was completely encased inside of the ball, she only had a second to realize that the clear white stuff was ice before the she was dropped.

"ED-EEEEE!"

It hit the track hard and rolled down towards the third puzzle at an alarming speed. She held the chair for dear life to prevent her from being thrown around inside the ball. Can someone say blunt force trauma? Why couldn't there have been a harness or a belt? Had she known she was going to be put through a roller coaster she would have brought a rope. Though it wouldn't matter if something shattered the ice, she had seen them break so easily.

She swallowed down vomit and the scream that wanted to escape her.

From the third puzzle she rolled back into the building and went to the balancing puzzle. She exited the tunnel and knocked into the wooden/crystal ball, getting it going. She rolled into the chute and continued on back to the building.

Why? Why was this a thing?

The turntable rushed towards her and she made a strangled noise as she was flung through the air. Her teeth rattled loudly as the ball was thrown from table to table and finally back onto the tracks to the building.

She exited out by the main entrance and went passed the hexagon panels. The submerged sections of track rose in order and allowed her to pass. Six came to a hard stop on the other side. A cart moved the ball to the right and the ice ball finally shatter.

Six collapsed out of the chair and vomited into the ocean below. Holy crap. She never ever wanted to ride a roller coaster again. Thank god they were all destroyed in the War.

"%*!~"

"Remind me to hit Atrus next time I see him," Six replied with a groan. "What the fuck was he thinking?"

"%*!~"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about it," she said.

Six stood up and grabbed her canteen. She poured water into her mouth and spat it into the ocean. She wiped her face again as she looked out across the water at the pillars with flowing blue lines forming a deliberate picture. She pulled out her camera to snap a picture of it. Another poem down, but what were they for?

She shook her head and manhandled ED-E over to the J'nanin Linking Book on the table.

Chapter Four End

Up Next: Six cheats a little more. Okay, a lot more.

**Author's Note: **

I love roller coasters. Six does not. Poor Six.

I also really like Amateria, but I did not like writing this. Amateria is little more than puzzles, and I don't like putting the solutions in the fic unless I absolutely have to. There was very little I could do with this Age in terms of changing things up or even making it interesting. Aside from the four puzzles, there's nothing else to Amateria beyond pretty scenery. I am unhappy with this chapter, I'm sorry if you are as well, but I don't think it could have been much better.

The next chapter (which I have enjoyed writing immensely) is actually almost done already, so it shouldn't be too long between updates unless something comes up. Just stay tuned.

Thank you for reading,

_Home On the Wastes_


	6. A Heartbeat Away

**The Cries From Dead Worlds**

**Chapter Five: A Heartbeat Away**

Sparks spilled from the guts of the scanner and the lattice egg cage opened like a flower. The projectors activated to throw Saavedro's face on the ceiling.

"This what you expected, Atrus? When you followed me here, hoping to reclaim Releeshahn? Is this classroom what you expected to find? I read your journal, you know. In Tomahna. After I found your Linking Book abandoned outside this observatory. I read all about the D'ni. How you started their world again. Can you really do that, Atrus? After everything that's happened to Narayan, could you start the world over again? I don't think so. I think there's too much blood on our hands, too many ghosts. Surely you can't change that with a pen stroke? One more symbol, Atrus. Narayan is waiting."

He disappeared and Six tilted her head at the Linking Book in the center of the open cage. "One more symbol? If he means for me to find one in Voltaic, then why would I need it? That gap isn't that big. ED-E come here, please, in case I slip."

Six tested the cage's open piece. The metal was strong and would hold her as long as she didn't do jumping jacks on it. She carefully got on top of it and inched her way over to the center. Six removed the book from its holder, putting it in her bag so she could get back to solid ground without hindrance.

When she was back to safety, she opened it on the floor to watch the flyby. It didn't show much. Just some stairs and a dim room at the end. ED-E nudged her. She wrapped her arm around him and they disappeared into the pages.

**2**

The docking station she and ED-E Linked into on Narayan was deserted. To her it looked like it had hardly ever been touched by anyone. She ran her hand down the woven branches that framed the hollow spore she was inside of. They looked like organic Roman columns. She walked over to the round machines set up in the room like an eye sore. Atrus' additions, no doubt. Another test for his sons. She tried to activate them, but it didn't seem like the power was on so she abandoned them for now.

Six touched the hard white shield blocking the nearby doorway, only to have to pull her hand away. Ice, like the ball on Amateria. Six rubbed her numb fingers together as she looked passed an overgrown doorway to see a much larger ice shield encased the tree she was in, preventing the cable-car outside from moving. Saavedro called the shield impenetrable.

Just passed the ice she could make out a network of thin trees, like the one she was in, rising up from the sea of red fog. A cable ran between each station, she assumed they lead to the gigantic shriveled tree in the distance. Six could imagine that was where the main population lived before Sirrus and Achenar returned.

"&)-+"

"Hmm?"

Six turned around. ED-E was examining the red curtains lining the back of the room. Familiar patterns had been sown in gold on the fabric. She dug the photos out of her bag and held them up, looking for the ones that fit, hoping her symbols weren't on the two curtains that had been cut down.

The symbols that she had gotten from Edanna translated to 'nature encourage'. That didn't sound like much, but Saavedro had mentioned desecrating the poems. She only had a small piece of the whole. Was that a problem? She wasn't sure yet.

She left the tapestries and headed up the metal and glass staircase to get to the roof. There was a metal landing situated on top of the bulbous green spore that was the main room. There was a heavy airlock door like on an aircraft carrier at the opposite end. Just in front of her was a grating with some sort of orange gas beneath it and tanks nearby. Six turned a lever on the edge of the grating and she heard the telltale hum of machinery kicking on.

Six looked over at the door for a moment, but ultimately made her way back downstairs. She wanted to solve the mystery down there first before went looking for more.

ED-E floated silently beside her, and she was just glad for his presence. He had prevented her from being alone for over a decade. He didn't die and when he was hurt she could fix him. There were times when she could just be so grateful that he was there. He helped keep the ghosts that lingered away.

She tried the machine closest to the stairs but it didn't seem like it was getting any juice. Six went to the other one and was relieved to find that it worked. It rose up to chest level. She opened the metal cover on the front to see a series of small tubes inside making floral patterns in circles. She touched one section and it lit up neon orange. Six activated a few more and realized she could make make the Narayan symbols on them. Unfortunately, that also meant she only had half of the correct code.

"If Saavedro thinks that's going to stop me, he's wrong," Six said. She looked over every inch of the machine and said, "My wrench isn't going to do it. ED-E I need your multi-tools for this, please."

He floated lower to help her and they set to work hacking into Atrus' device. So much for not cheating, but circumstances didn't always allow for fair play.

**3**

The shield melted away like it had never even been there in the first place. Six laughed and held up her hand. ED-E bumped into it to complete their version of a high-five.

"Impenetrable my ass," Six cheered. In a hurry, she gathered the tools scattered around. Six snatched up her bag and ran over to the cable-car shaped kind of like those boats that had once sailed the canals of Venice, or did sail them, if she were to go by the date on Atrus' Earth. She got onto the car and froze when she looked over her shoulder, her hand poised over the single lever that acted as a control. She hadn't been able to see it with the shield up, but there was another tree in the distance. It was larger than the docking stations, but slightly smaller than the dead, burned husk of the original tree. It was new and alive. Numerous bright lights could be seen peeking out from between the network of branches holding countless spores hostage.

Six nodded, not as surprised as she probably should have been. She had seen life survive worse than a civil war. Where there was a will, there was a way. And some people could have wills that were never broken no matter how badly they had been beaten down.

She flipped the lever. The car jerked and then moved smoothly forward on its guide cable. ED-E kept up easily and gave the illusion he wasn't moving at all as he remained in the same place beside her.

The car didn't stop at any of the stations and Six got a good look at the shriveled and burned Lattice Tree as they got closer. She bowed her head as they passed by.

Six, though glad the Narayan people had survived despite what Saavedro thought, was even more glad she had her Kevlar vest. They might not be too fond of outsiders after the whole thing with Achenar and Sirrus. She brushed away any dirt that might be clinging to it, but knew it was a lost cause to get it clean. The vest was still a running joke between Joshua and her, but he hadn't minded when she removed the police department stitching and replaced it with 'Courier' instead. On the back was the symbol Ulysses had given her. It had generated an additional nickname on her journeys, 'Blackjack'. She swore she had more names than any one person really needed. In recent years her reputation was starting to precede her. She'd show up exhausted to settlements whose people thought of her as an urban (wasteland) legend. It was fairly ridiculous having random strangers come up to her asking for autographs. It reminded her a little too much of how some of the Rivenese had viewed her. Like a prophet or an angel in the flesh.

Made her skin crawl.

The car docked and Six stepped off with ED-E. The green spores looked more lively and vibrant than the ones at the docking station. Six scratched the back of her head and looked around. Three other cable cars were resting empty on either side of the car she rode in on. She spied some stairs that was naturally woven from the tree and four branching hallways.

They were about to set off looking for people when an old woman appeared on the stairs, stopping halfway down, keeping distance between them. Her long silvery hair was pulled back in a cord like vine, it hung over her shoulder coming down to her waist. It matched the color of her simple dress perfectly, almost blending in.

"Hello," Six greeted with her the most friendly smile in her arsenal. "I don't suppose you understand me?"

"I understand you, stranger. Tell me, why are you here?" The woman spoke with a surprising contralto's voice. She looked down at the Courier with pale green eyes that had seen enough to be cautious, but not to make immediate assumptions.

Six chose her words carefully as she spoke, "I am investigating a man who attempted to cause a friend of mine great harm. A man I have reason to believe is one of your people."

The woman searched her for a long time before asking, "What man do you speak of?"

"A man named Saavedro," Six answered simply. No point in beating around the bush.

The woman gave a start. With a very severe stare she said, "Saavedro is dead."

"Ah, I see," Six sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. "You and I have a lot to talk about. This might take a bit."

"Then come, let us talk." The woman held out her hand and motioned for the Courier to follow her.

**4**

After Six had given her long explanation over strong tea in a small spore near the peak of the new lattice tree, the old woman finally introduced herself as Sanda. She was one of three surviving elders of what she called 'The Conflict', and the only Narayan besides Saavedro who spoke English.

The Courier admired the ceremonial masks on the wall behind Sanda as she waited for the elder to mull over all she had been told. Six sipped her tea quietly as Sanda opened Saavedro's journal once more and began ordering the pages.

"These in the corner here," Sanda told her, pointing to the little tree like designs on the papers. "These are numbers. He knew not the date, it would seem. You have pages still missing."

Six nodded.

"This is a sad business," Elder Sanda sighed. She handed the journal back to Six who accepted it back with care.

"I'll say."

Her eyes locked onto Six's, "You walked through our new home. Tell me, what did you see as I led you here?"

She saw curious and searching looks from people who peered at her from the safety of doorways and alleys. She saw a busy market, and smiling children who had little idea of what happened twenty years before. A whole generation that only knew of the civil war through stories. She saw a strong, healthy tree that had plenty of room to grow.

"I see a people who have moved on," Six said after a great pause.

"The Tree is stronger than some realize. Even our own people did not believe the hidden strength of the Lattice. We have survived and we grew stronger as a people for it. We are as one again."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"The sons of Atrus, Achenar and Sirrus, share blame for what happened, but it was not all them. The tensions they exploited had existed for decades, something that was slowly creeping, building up on us all, not just the youths. The other elders and I fully expected confrontation at some point. We, perhaps, were not so prepared as we should have been to have it come so early. But we did have a plan in case something happened to the Tree. That is how so many lived, mainly mothers and children, but it was more than enough."

Six sat forward and said, "Mothers and children? Did Saavedro's wife...?"

"She remarried six years ago."

Six winced.

Sanda nodded sadly, "We believed Saavedro dead, for he did not return. To hear he is alive is both welcoming and uncomfortable. It is clear that he has become unstable. I sympathize and mourn with him, but he has plotted to murder an innocent man and his wife and infant daughter."

Way to tell it like it was.

"I can tell you now that Atrus isn't going to seek any retribution. Hell, he'll probably be the first one to speak in Saavedro's defense," Six told her, already picturing Atrus composing a grand speech in Saavedro's favor.

"That makes it all the sadder," she said after a sip of her tea.

Six hesitated, but the Death Claw in the room had to be addressed. "What about Sirrus and Achenar?" she asked.

"What of them?" Sanda looked very tired all of a sudden.

"We're talking about justice here," Six replied. "What would you have done with them?"

"They are never to set foot on Narayan again," she said simply, taking another sip of tea.

"That it?" Six asked. She frowned, she was missing something, she could feel it.

"It is as you have said, we have moved on. It is best those two misguided boys are merely forgotten. There is no point in seeking retribution now. It would do little good." But there was something in Sanda's eyes as she spoke those words. Six knew it to be regret...and guilt? What?

"If it helps," Six said slowly, "they haven't gotten away with it."

Sanda said nothing in response to that. Actually, Six thought she looked uncomfortable. Why? There was a piece here she didn't have.

"Will you be sending Saavedro back to us?" Sanda eventually asked.

Six raised an eyebrow, "Don't you want me to?"

"Yes," Sanda nodded. "But it does complicate things greatly. He has been consumed by his anger and the past. His wife has married another and his eldest daughter is expecting the birth of her first child. This will put a strain on her that she does not need."

Ow.

"I'm sorry about all of this," Six said, feeling like she had when she scouted out Nipton for Ranger Ghost.

Sanda shook her head, "It is not your fault, child."

"I'm still sorry."

"As am I, as am I," the elder replied.

Six finished off her tea and asked, "What do want to do? Should we return Saavedro as soon as possible, or should we wait?"

Sanda stared up at one of the tapestries adorning the tea room's walls, "I must speak with the other elders. You are welcome to walk among our people as long as you do not cause any trouble."

"ED-E and I will be on our best behavior. I promise," Six said, placing her hand over her heart.

"Very good," she nodded. "I will find you when we have reached a decision. Until next time, Courier Six"

**5**

Six didn't understand a word that anyone was saying to her, but she was having a good time looking around the Lattice Tree. There weren't any streets or roads, but a network of rooms and alleys made in a way that made sense only to the locals, but mystified Six and ED-E. Deeper into the heart of the tree, she discovered that not all the spored were green. There were purples, blues, pinks, red, and yellows in all sizes. The lamps lit inside made them glow like gigantic fire-marbles. The transition from calm deep green to a cheery rainbow was a welcome one, giving the 'buildings' a more personal touch. Six had never seen so many clean bright colors in one place.

So far, Narayan was treating her better than Edanna.

Sanda must have put a good word in for her because everyone seemed to be polite. Nobody gave Six a second glance as she rested in an out of the way corner of an orange spore. Not far from her was a very good flute band panhandling for Narayan currency that looked like decorative pearls or beads. She had her eyes closed, just enjoying the music when ED-E beeped. Six opened her eyes to see a young woman with wavy, straw colored hair in front to her. Six guessed her to be in her early twenties with a lovely heart shaped face that gave her a look of innocence, but the serious determination she exuded threw off that first glancing impression. The resemblance to a certain someone took a few moments for Six to register.

"My father?" she asked firmly. She didn't appear angry or demanding, just as though she were stating fact.

"Yes," Six replied with an accompanying nod.

The woman, Saavedro's daughter, nodded back. She folded her hands neatly in front of her and looked off into the distance, deep in thought. She frowned and then turned back to Six and held out her thin, long fingered hand. Six took it and let herself be pulled from the room. The woman led her along twisting paths and down flights of stairs. The lower they got, the less organized things became. The branches weren't as beautifully woven together, instead they were slapdash, promoting function over form.

They came to a stop at an aquamarine spore Six recognized as actually being a home, distinguished from public places by the silk tightly covering the small entrance. The blue silk had Narayan symbols on it, probably an address of some kind. The woman pealed back the material to reveal a screen of thin branches underneath. She pulled out a key from a pouch tied on her waist and put it in a metal lock keeping the branches attached to the entryway. The branches folded inward when the woman pushed them forward. She waved her to come inside and Six entered with ED-E beeping in mild annoyance as he finally caught up after being left in the dust.

The home was a small one, made up of two spores fused together of the same color, the main room was only slightly bigger than the tea room Sanda had taken her to, but Six could tell a lot of love went into decorating it. Artwork and tapestries with Narayan poems hung on the walls. A bed made up with fluffy pillows and a pretty pink and white quilt lay across it. The entrance to the second spore was covered with another silk door that depicted white flowers blooming along a delicate branch with a flock birds flying near the top.

The woman pointed to a painting hanging over her simple desk. It was of a red haired woman Six knew to be Tamra and a Saavedro with a much softer bearing than the one Six had briefly met.

"Mother. Father," the woman said, following it with words in her own language that had not been meant for Six. The woman turned back to the Courier and it struck her how birdlike the woman appeared with her long, thin limbs. She pointed to herself and said, "Thiri."

Six could only assume that was her name. She smiled and pointed to herself as well, "Six."

"Ssssiiicksss," Thiri sounded out, trying the syllables.

Six smiled again. Close enough. Thiri butchered her name about as much as Atrus butchered his own wife's name. If Kat could find it in her heart to forgive Atrus then Six could forgive a stranger.

Thiri went over to her small kitchenette and came back with another, smaller painting with a simple frame. She handed Six the painting and she saw Tamra beside a dark haired man. He wasn't particularly handsome, but there was a gentle kindness to him and a tender love as he looked on Tamra. One Tamra returned. On either side of the couple were two blonde haired teenage girls, one of which was a younger Thiri. Both girls were beaming with happiness. One big happy family.

It had taken Tamra fourteen years to move on from her supposedly dead husband. Six handed the painting back, feeling the weight of recent events.

Thiri accepted it back and gently placed it on her desk. She opened a drawer and handed Six another portrait. This was of a very young boy who couldn't have been older than three years old sitting on Tamra's lap. He had his father's dark hair and his mother's eyes.

Six managed to resist the strong urge to wince again.

The woman took the painting from her carefully, apparently satisfied that her message had been delivered. All Six could do was shrug at her, feeling useless. She brushed her hands together as though wiping away imaginary dirt. This was out of her hands.

Thiri nodded to show that she understood, but a deep, weary sadness was in her eyes. Six wondered how old she was when her father disappeared. Had she even been old enough to remember him?

The Narayan woman got down on her knees and dragged a cot out from under her bed. She moved to drag it into the kitchenette, Six scrambled to take the other end and most of the weight. Once it was in the only empty spot in the room, Thiri left her to set up the cot as she went to drag a box out next. Six glanced over her shoulder and saw it was full of spare bedding. She removed a purple quilt and laid it out on the newly set up cot, following it up with a fluffy blue pillow.

Thiri swept her hand out over the bed and said, "Father."

Six looked down and fiddled idly with the knobs on her pip-boy. She dropped her hands and stared Thiri in eyes.

"Your father loves you very much," Six said even though Thiri wouldn't understand.

The woman tilted her head, and Six saw understanding there.

"Love father," Thiri said, followed by several murmured Narayan words. She looked over at the portraits still on her desk.

Six commiserated with her. Even though love was a powerful force, it wasn't always enough. It would be hard for the family, but Six had to believe they were strong enough to work it out eventually. Sometimes a little hope could go a long way. Love, hope, and hard work. Those would be the only things that would get them through the coming trials.

**6**

Six was sitting in the busy market with Thiri, enjoying a desert the woman had insisted on buying her, when Sanda found them. Thiri stood and greeted the elder with a bow. She gestured to Six as she spoke to the old woman.

Sanda looked wary, but she seemed to agree with whatever Thiri had told her. Thiri bowed twice, once to Sanda and once to Six, and then left without another word.

"Come with me, child. There is something I wish to show you," Sanda said.

ED-E and Six followed the elder in silence all the way to the very top of the Lattice Tree. They passed homes, businesses, a school for young children, people weaving branches together and grafting new with the old. Six smiled at the workers as she passed them, only a few returned it.

The three of them reached the top of the tree and Six rubbed her upper arms, the wind had picked up and could be felt acutely from the altitude they were at. There was a railing lining the edge that was made of the same braided branches everything else was. Sanda handed her a telescope made out of green wood and had a membrane at the end where the glass should be. Six looked through it and Sanda directed her gaze over to the dead Lattice Tree.

"What do you see? Look closely," Sanda said.

There was a lot of fire damage and parts that had completely collapsed. There was a blanket of ash covering some open places, but Six saw green in the gray. Just flecks of it here and there and tiny little blue flowers blooming near the base where the trunk came out of the fog.

"It's recovering?" Six asked, pulling the scope away from her face.

Sanda nodded, "We've been sending people over, placing grafts from this tree. The top was very badly harmed, but the trunk and the roots were strong. With careful tending, the old tree may return."

"That's great," Six said and handed the telescope back.

"Perhaps," she said. Sanda walked over to the railing and placed her hands on it. "The only problem is that we don't necessarily have the people to maintain two trees, but it felt wrong to leave it as it was."

Six joined her and leaned against the railing, her back to the old tree. "I can understand that. Do you think...what do you have in trade?"

Sanda looked at her in surprise, "Trade? Why?"

"Because Atrus might know people who would send workers in exchange for goods they need or want. They could help you maintain the two trees until your population catches up," Six shrugged.

Sanda was silent for a time. She stared out across the foggy expanse, though Six didn't think she was actually looking at it. As the Courier waited she wiped dirt off of ED-E's chassis. He beeped his appreciation.

"I will discuss it with the others," Sanda said. "I will give you our answer when you return with Saavedro."

"When will I be doing that?" Six asked.

She looked at Six and said, "As soon as possible, if it pleases you."

"Alright," she agreed. "It's long passed time I headed back to Tomahna anyway. I'm gonna have to go back to the station I arrived in." She was looking forward to getting back to Atrus and Katran.

"Very well," Sanda said.

Six would have taken it as her cue to leave, but it looked like the old woman still had something to say.

"Do you think ill of Tamra for remarrying?" Sanda asked.

"She thought Saavedro was dead, and I'm a big believer in letting go when it's needed." Six shook her head, "I saw a picture of the family together. The girls were happy. If Saavedro had really been dead, her remarrying wouldn't be an issue at all. Tamra couldn't have known."

"Arun, Tamra's new husband, was one of the men who had been chosen to escort the women and children to safety. That is how they met, and when we settled into this new Lattice Tree, he became her neighbor. Throughout the first ten years he was nothing more than a close family friend. He helped her care for her fatherless daughters. Kyi and Thiri grew to adore him, he might as well have been their father. After a decade of depression and mourning for her husband, and at the urgings of her own daughters, she allowed Arun to court her," Sanda explained slowly. "Arun is deeply in love with her, and often tells people that every day of the four years he courted her was worth it. Tamra, for her part, did come to love him in return, eventually, but she struggled with the thought of remarrying for a long time. I haven't told her about Saavedro yet, I do not look forward to that conversation."

"She couldn't have known," Six repeated.

"No," Sanda sighed. "But I doubt that will comfort her."

"$)..:! -*&"

"Will Saavedro be staying with Thiri?" Six asked for ED-E.

"She's volunteered, and he must stay somewhere, but with his recent actions, I hesitate to allow it. We'll have to see," Sanda said. She stepped away from the railing and smiled softly at Six, "Will you send Atrus and his wife my well wishes."

"I will."

Chapter Five End

Up Next: Back to Tomahna

**Author's Note:**

What? It can't always be rainbows and sunshine. If you're getting the impression that I don't like Saavedro, than you'd be wrong. I find him a very compelling character, but twenty years have gone by. A lot can change in that time, especially if everyone thinks you're dead.

Saavedro is going to be a more important character in this fic than he was in the games, and his story isn't going to end when Six brings him home.

I'm sorry if you don't like my version of Narayan, but it was all I could think of on short notice. I'll try to put in more depth the next time the Courier shows up in the Age for an extended period.

Don't worry Voltaic fans, Six will go there when she gets around to it. There's slightly more pressing matters at the moment.

Thank you for reading,

_Home On the Wastes_


	7. Sink Or Swim

**The Cries From Dead Worlds**

**Chapter Six: Sink Or Swim**

"Honey, we're home!" Six called from the empty Sun Room. It was dark out and the fire-marble lamps were the only things providing any light. A quick check of the pip-boy clock informed her that it wasn't anywhere near late enough for the insomniac couple to be in bed.

The door to Atrus' office was thrown open wide and a very relieved looking Katran walked through.

"Oh, thank the Maker, you've returned. We have been so worried. Atrus and I were considering coming after you," Katran said, striding over to her.

"No worries. I occasionally know what I'm doing," Six replied. "And if I don't, ED-E certainly does."

"Hello, ED-E," Katran greeted. The robot returned it with a happy beep. "Atrus went to check on Yeesha, he'll be back here soon. Reilly has been a big help, she hasn't left our daughter's side since she arrived. It is a weight off our shoulders knowing Yeesha isn't alone."

"That's what Reilly's here for," Six said.

"Are you hungry? There's some dinner left over that I can heat up for you," Katran offered.

"That sounds great, thanks." Sugar bombs, water, and tea was hardly a healthy diet. Especially since she threw up the cereal.

"Does ED-E need anything?" Katran asked, looking up at the robot.

"A good scrubbing, but I'll do that later." Six glanced down at her hands and clothes. "Actually, I could use a scrubbing too."

"I'll show you to the washroom. You can bathe while I heat up your food," Katran said, beckoning for Six to follow her.

**2**

"You have no idea how glad I am that Narayan has recovered," Atrus said, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. He adjusted them and moved over to stand by the open kitchen door to look out over the canyon, a mild breeze ruffled his hair.

"I do. More than you know," Six replied as she finished Katran's delicious stew. "What was in this?" she asked the woman sitting across from her at the small table.

"Venison," Katran replied quietly. She sat across from Six, staring at her hands folded on the table in front of her.

"That's deer right? If I take nothing else home I can tell people deer tastes like a leaner version of Big Horner." Six said, flat out ignoring the tension in the room. She pushed the wet strands of her hair out her face and straightened the black jacket she was wearing over a striped shirt. "So, I gotta take Saavedro back to Narayan and hope everything works itself out."

"Should I go with you?" Atrus asked.

"That's not necessary, but there is something you can do," Six said. "The old Lattice Tree is slowly making a come back, but they don't have the numbers to upkeep the two Trees. I suggested you might know some people who would be willing to do some work in trade for whatever goods the Narayan's have to spare."

"Narayan has an abundance of high quality silk. There's a type of silkworm there that produces some of the best I've ever seen. They don't put much value in it because of how much of it there is, but I guarantee you that people in Releeshahn and Averone would appreciate access to it," Atrus said, his good humor returning. Possibilities cycling in his mind.

"Great. They're talking over the decision, but they don't have much of a choice if they want to keep both of the Trees."

"I thank you, my friend. For all you've done," Atrus said. "When I expressed a need for your assistance some time ago, this wasn't what I had in mind. It seems I continue to be a poor host."

"It's not your fault." Six replied.

He looked away, staring at the mantle above the fireplace where black and white photos of his sons stared back. "I should have searched the surviving Books more thoroughly. I just assumed Sirrus and Achenar hadn't touched them."

"You thought J'nanin was uninhabited," she replied.

"Yes, but I knew Narayan was. I should have checked."

"And Saavedro would have killed you the minute you entered the observatory," Six countered. "It's better this way."

"For who? Me?" Atrus questioned. "It wasn't better for Saavedro."

Six slammed her hand down on the table, startling Katran. "Yes! For you! What would your senseless death have accomplished? Nothing, that's what. Saavedro is a sick man that needs help, but not at the cost of your life."

"Atrus, she's right," Katran said softly, standing from her chair and going over to him. She took his hands and said, "There was nothing that could have been done, my love. We've talked about this before."

Six guessed she was talking about Terahnee. Atrus' letters during and following the experience had been so stiff and detached that she knew he was beating himself up over it really badly. She wished she could have helped more than she did, but the portal had only been safe for cyber dogs to go through, their mechanical parts protecting them from the damage it caused.

After Six had woken up in the desert of Atrus' Earth following the incident on Riven, she had gone back through the open portal in the Cleft—Atrus' original home, coincidentally—and had come out the other side in a coma. The only reason she lived at all was because of her many implants.

Roxie had occupied her sudden free time by going back and forth between the two Earths trying to find the entrance to D'ni that Atrus had told her about. When Six had woken and had fetched Rex and the pups from a very concerned Joshua, Rex had joined the search. They had eventually made their way down the Great Shaft to the D'ni City proper, carefully mapping out the tunnels with their enhanced senses. Eventually they had found Atrus with his restoration party searching for books. Atrus and Katran had been ecstatic to see them, and enlisted the two dogs into couriers between Six and them. Rex and Roxie hadn't minded, especially since the fascinated D'ni had spoiled them rotten every time they came back with a letter.

"Did you tell them about Sirrus and Achenar?" Atrus asked uneasily, breaking her train of thought.

"They don't want to see their faces ever again. That's an easy promise to keep considering they're both locked up tight," Six answered.

"That's it?" Atrus' surprise was clear.

"They're more trouble than they're worth," Six shrugged, she planted her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her fist.

"I wonder..." Katran whispered, her eyes far away.

Six raised her eyebrows at the woman, "Kat?"

"Do not worry about it," she replied with a smile that would be convincing if not for the turning cogs in the woman's green eyes.

"Alright," Six said, letting it go for now. "I'm gonna go get Saavedro and escort him back."

"You're going now?" Atrus asked, frowning.

"Yeah, why?"

"It's quite late," he said, gesturing to the door letting pale moonlight in.

"They said as soon as possible. I've already wasted time eating and stuff," Six replied. "Where'd I leave my vest?"

Atrus pointed at where it rested by the door and Six quickly put it back on. They had confiscated Saavedro's hammer, but he could have forged a crude weapon in the time she had been away. As long as it wasn't another hammer, she'd be fine. The vest was rated for knives.

The couple escorted her back to Atrus' office. Six shook her head fondly at the unnecessary rotating bridge. A fine example of Atrus' patented architectural designs. She looked out across the canyon, admiring the scenery. The ambient noises of bugs and the rushing water below added a tranquility that could lull anyone into relaxing. Tomahna really was a beautiful place. Yeesha was a lucky girl to be raised in such a place.

They passed through Katran's study/greenhouse and the Sun Room to enter the office and Atrus moved one of his tapestries aside to reveal a sturdy looking safe that required a complicated combination. Inside was a stack of papers laying under a very familiar red book. Without a word, he took it and a key. Atrus held the book open for her with one hand and handed over the key with the other. The Linking Panel showed steep peeks piercing thick clouds sparking with lighting.

"The password is a D'ni word, neither of my sons wound understand it. Catherine, can you show her?"

He needn't have asked, she was already at his desk, writing it out carefully. Katran finished and handed her the parchment, taking care not to smear the ink.

"What does it mean?" Six asked, looking over the flowing script.

"Hope, a wish."

"Nice. We'll be back."

**3**

Spire was a dark, cold, and dreary rock among foreboding clouds. That was Six's first impression within the first five seconds after Linking in. No wonder Katran had hated it.

There was also no sign of Saavedro. Six looked over at the horn installed in the Nara chamber, but disregarded it. She moved the small bench aside to remove the panel from the floor. Underneath it was an electrified box and a lock just above it. She inserted the key Atrus gave her to shut off the electricity. Six opened the box and found a combination lock. She put in the password, careful to match up the D'ni letters, and the bars in the gate behind her slid into the ground.

"ED-E, whatever you do, don't shoot him. I have a strong feeling this'll come to fisticuffs, if that happens then I'll handle it."

She took point down the narrow stone stairs, wary of an ambush.

ED-E spotted Saavedro first and alerted Six before the man could notice them. He was sitting on a barren landing at the very bottom of the stairs near something that looked like a remnant of a grand wall. Making a split second decision, Six pulled out the Compliance Regulator and fired a single shot. It struck and he stiffened, but didn't pass out.

Damn.

Six ran the rest of the way, hoping to get to him before he could recover, but was too late. He broke out of his paralysis and pulled out a sharpened piece of rock that cut deep into his own hand. He jumped up and slashed at her face, but he misjudged the distance and did it too early. The makeshift knife passed harmlessly right in front of her, and she took the opportunity to bash him over the head with the back of the stun gun.

A wordless scream erupted from Saavedro and he dropped to his knees.

"Sit down and shut up! If we can talk like normal people you might learn something interesting!" Six grabbed him by the collar of his rags.

He screamed again and came up with the rock. ED-E beeped angrily as Six let go of his collar and her weapon to hit him with the Ranger Counter, knocking him back down. She stomped down hard on the hand holding the rock, forcing him to let go of it. She kicked the weapon away and dived for the fallen Compliance Regulator. Once it was back in her hand she fired two shots, finally rendering him unconscious.

Maybe he'd be a better conversationalist in his own home.

She took the Narayan Linking Book out of her bag, laying it out on the ground. She dropped Saavedro's hand on it. When he was gone, she and ED-E Linked right behind him.

**4**

People were already tending to Saavedro when she showed up, one of them was Thiri. The blond woman laid out a blanket and directed two others to move him onto it. Sanda greeted Six by taking her hands in a way she recognized as a D'ni greeting from Atrus' description of it from their letters. He must have taught her.

"He was trouble?" Sanda asked.

"No more than a drunk in your average bar fight," Six said.

"At least he is finally home," Sanda replied, watching as two young man moved Saavedro into the cable car using the blanket like a stretcher. "Perhaps, in time, he can heal."

"He can't do that alone," Six replied, looking at Thiri who was supervising the move. "And not if he doesn't want to."

Sanda just nodded tiredly.

"I'm really big on second chances for those who honestly want to have one. I know a lot of people who managed to turn their lives around for the better. I hope Saavedro will become one of them."

"We all do," Sanda said, quietly. The others had finished loading Saavedro onto the car and were ready to go. Sanda turned to Six and said, "We would like to discuss your trade proposal. I understand that you might like a couple of days for things to calm down, we need time ourselves to work this out, but whenever is convenient we would like to speak to Atrus about it."

"I'll let him know. We'll get back to you," Six said. She thought for a moment and then pointed down the stairs to the bottom level of the docking station. "There's a spare Book to Tomahna there. If you need anything, just ask. That goes especially for Thiri and her family. I can't speak for Atrus or Katran, but I'll do whatever I can to help."

"That is good of you."

"Call it what you will," Six shrugged.

"Thank you for bringing a lost son home," Sanda said softly. She looked over at the people waiting for her, "There is something I have been struggling with for twenty-five years. A secret I have kept. I should have shared it long ago, but I kept my silence, as we all did. I would like to speak of it now, to you, but we do not have the time. When you return, there is a story you and Atrus must hear."

"Alright," Six said, mystified.

Sanda held up her hand in a D'ni farewell which Six returned. ED-E and she watched as the old woman boarded the cable car with the others and departed.

Thiri called to her as the car pulled away, "Thank you, Sicks."

**5  
**

The morning sun bathed Tomahna in bright golden light, already promising a hot day, but none of them seemed to mind. Six, who had slept on the floor of the Sun Room under her own volition, had been the first awake and was in a good mood all things considered. Atrus, in contrast, was not a morning person, nor was he one for breakfast. His usual morning routine involved locking himself in his office with a cup of tea or coffee depending on what had been available during the last time they traded and who they traded with.

Atrus kept an Age they used for food crops that was empty of sentient habitation. It was one of the first Age's Atrus had written without the tyranny of his father hanging over him. But they had had to cut back on the amount they grew because they used to have their sons to help tend the plants. A number of luxury crops no longer grew there, only the ones the couple absolutely needed.

None of the occupants in the kitchen missed Atrus poor early morning attitude, content to talk over the breakfast Six had cooked. She had been the first up so she had figured she had ought to do it, that had always been the rule in places she stayed at for everyone that wasn't a complete asshole.

She had been a bit creative with the ingredients due to her unfamiliarity with some, but Katran didn't mind. Reilly definitely didn't, she ate whatever scraps of meat the women fed her as she sat underneath Yeesha's highchair. The little girl had already been fed and was amusing herself with a small toy that Six didn't recognize from anything she had grown up with. It looked like some kind of puzzle square with interlocking pieces made out of a soft material for small children. The baby wasn't making much headway as her strategy appeared to simply be randomly pulling at the blocks until some came loose.

"Who taught you to be a healer?" Katran asked after she was finished telling Six about Atrus' new crusade to thoroughly educate himself on infectious diseases. Six had no doubt he'd be interrogating her on the subject soon. Shame her specialty was trauma surgery.

"I picked up a lot of my knowledge over the years from medical journals and magazines, records in hospitals, but most of what I know comes from my dad. He started teaching me medicine almost as soon as I could talk, and I often assisted him in his clinic. The Overseer, the man who was in charge of the Vault, often had kids put into volunteer work when they got I trouble. I had a childhood rivalry with a boy my age, and we got in trouble often just from us fighting. Butch usually got stuck mopping the kitchen, or cleaning up hair on the barber's floor. I always volunteered to help my dad. The Overseer hated that, but there wasn't really any rules that forbade it," Six explained, the memories bringing a small smile to her face.

"When I was a girl, before Gehn brought me into his new Guild of Writers and Riven was whole, I used to help my father fish. That was a job usually meant for a son, but I was an only child and my mother had taken ill when I was only a little older than Yeesha is now. There were many who did not like that he allowed me the rights of a male heir, but he never listened to them. I was his child, nothing else mattered to him," Katran told her as breakfast started to come to a close.

"I know what it's like being an only child with just a dad. Fortunately for me there wasn't any gender discrimination in the Vault. We couldn't afford to." Six said.

Katran nodded. "He and I would go out onto the sea before the sun had awoken and he taught me all he knew of his craft. We would stay out there almost all day, and when we returned we would always be exhausted, but it was well worth it. Bone tired as we both were, he taught me how to cook fish with his scant knowledge, that _was_ woman's work, it was amazing he knew anything at all about it, but my knowledge soon outstripped his as I started experimenting with methods. We usually used the oven in our hut, but my favorite way was over a grill. We didn't have one ourselves, but my mother's brother would occasionally let me use his. Before I married Atrus, the happiest moments of my life were fishing with my father and relaxing at home after a long day's work."

"You miss him?" Six asked softly, even though she could already guess the answer.

"Do you miss yours?" Katran replied just as quietly. Yeesha, as if sensing the changing in atmosphere, looked up from her toy to stare at her mother. Reilly crawled out from under the chair and looked at the both of them.

"Everyday," Six answered.

Yeesha made a noise a squirmed in her chair, reaching for her mommy. Katran picked her up and sat her in her lap, holding her close. She looked down at her daughter and brushed her hand down her soft hair. "Sirrus looks like him, my father, I mean," she said, still looking down at Yeesha. "I never told him that. I never told him anything about Riven. Neither of my sons knew anything about either of their heritage." She laughed, a hint of black humor there. "We thought we were protecting them."

"You know it's not too late to tell him, right?"

"He has a hard time speaking to me now," Katran said sadly. "Do you remember the journal you found in the Mechanical Age? The one written the Serenian language?"

"Yeah," Six said, not quite following. "Did you translate it?"

"Yes. It was a diary Sirrus kept when he was about thirteen. At the time, he had loved visiting Serenia. He never had the head for languages like Achenar did, but he made a real effort with theirs. I guess he kept a diary in the language knowing full well few would be able to translate it. I had a hard time, but I also had access to the Serenian Linking Book, they helped me with the phrases I was having trouble with."

Reilly, not wanting to be left out, jumped up onto Six's lap. She grunted at the impact and wrapped her arms around the dog, scratching her behind her ears. "If it was difficult, why didn't you just hand it over to them for translation?"

"Because I could read enough to know it was personal. It was bad enough that I was reading it. I don't wish to go into details, I mean no offense, you are trustworthy and you did find the diary, but I have so little ground with my son that I do not want to jeopardize what I have by telling his secrets."

Six held up her hands and said, "I get it."

"When I told him that I read it he was furious, but it wasn't just anger, it was like a chasm had just opened beneath him. Or like I had torn open an infected wound. Black agony beneath his poisonous anger. I must confess, I was glad that Atrus was not there, his presence would have made it all the worse. Do you know what it's like to try to comfort or calm someone with bars between you?"

"No," Six admitted aloud, but in her head she saw herself beating on the glass separating her from her dying father back in the Jefferson Memorial. "Had I been in your shoes, I probably would have Linked back and stolen the key from Atrus' safe, but I have a weapon, ED-E, and a history of knowingly putting myself in grave danger."

"Yet you yelled at Atrus last night for the roller coaster on Amateria."

"I said 'knowingly', I had no idea that was going to happen. I like to have prep time before I go into probable death."

"If there had been any true danger, Atrus would not have let our sons go through that."

"If you say so," Six finished her coffee. "So how'd it turn out with Sirrus? He still talking to you?"

"Yes," she sighed. "But he doesn't wish to discuss what I discovered. I try to bring it up when I visit him alone, because it is long passed time for him to talk about what happened back then, but he just becomes upset and leaves when I do. It's made him become even more distant from me."

"If whatever it is puts no one at present in danger then drop it, if it's just about him then he'll talk about it in his own time. Maybe you should focus on trying to bond with him. Telling him about Riven and Tay might be a good way to do it." Six got up to take her dishes to the sink, displacing Reilly.

"Six?" Katran said, still sitting at the table with Yeesha.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"For what?" Six asked, looking over her shoulder.

"Letting me talk about my sons. For your help with them. It has been a blessing to myself and Atrus. Few who know what they have done are so understanding."

Six shrugged and went back to cleaning her plate. "I probably am not as self righteously indignant as I should be over what they have done, and even what Saavedro has done. I've seen far worse than anything they've come up with. Why, I've met people who make Achenar and Sirrus looked like angels." Six shook her head, "There's not enough good people in my world, or I think in any world, to turn away the bad ones who want to try to do good. If they, Saavedro included, want to try then I want to help." Not to mention that they can still be useful. Them dead is just a waste and Six hated wasting resources when there was no reason to.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. We could all still come to regret this." She dried her plate and put it back in the cabinet she found. "How long do you suppose Atrus is going to be occupied?"

"Another few hours, he's responding to letters from Releeshahn. I don't suspect to see him until noon."

Six went over and tried to take Katran's dishes to wash which resulted in a silent argument over who would do the last of the cleaning up. Katran gave up if only because of Yeesha who was starting to fuss. "Why? Was there something you needed?"

"Not from him," she answered. "I'm going to visit your sons. I did promise to give them a check up."

"Yes you did..."

"As long as they don't attack me, I won't attack them." Six looked over her shoulder at Katran. "It'll be fine. I think they're both smart enough not to assault me directly." She hoped they were smart enough not to.

Chapter Six End

Next Up: Six and ED-E visit Achenar and Sirrus. Atrus makes a decision.  


**Author's Note:**

I'm sorry about the delay in posting this, but I was very sick. I just could not write anything. I also had a different ending for this before I rewrote it so that was also part of the problem.

Saavedro will get some actual dialogue soonish. I promise.

Thank you for sticking around,

_Home On the Wastes_


	8. Carry On You Wayward Sons

**The Cries From Dead Worlds**

**Chapter Seven: Carry On You Wayward Sons**

The heavy scent of plant and animal suffocated her senses the second she materialized in Haven. Better than a Brahmin pen, but not by much. The smell of salty sea air did much to make the atmosphere tolerable even if the roar of buzzing insects was fast becoming annoying.

Passed the electrified bars of the Linking Chamber she could make out angry clouds maybe an hour away from where she was.

Six let go of ED-E and shoved the bench aside so she could put in Atrus' key and the combination to open the chamber. She checked her stun gun to make sure it was good to go, the last thing she needed was it jamming at the wrong time. ED-E beeped that he was ready after she checked to make sure her spare energy cells were easily accessible. She nodded up at him and they set out into the jungle, sweat already dripping from her skin. One of the many reasons she owned a bandanna.

She kept her weapon ready as she walked across damp, uneven ground. It was either the wet season or the Age just received a lot of rainfall. So far she had seen more healthy plants during her visit to Tomahna than she had for most of her life in the Wasteland. It might be a good thing if she didn't suspect she was coming down with something. As if to prove her theory she sneezed four times in a row. Whatever it was, she had probably gotten it in Edanna, by god did she hate that Age.

ED-E beeped an alert and Six managed to stop her allergy fit in time to point at a nearby bush. "ED-E blast it," she ordered. The very next second the bush was nothing but a pile of ash being blown away by the strong breeze. "That'll be you next if you so much as think about making a wrong move." Six took a clean rag from her bag to wipe her face with. "Watch him, please."

Achenar, who had been frozen stiff in shock at the sight of them, dropped the logs he was carrying and held out his dirty hands palms up. "I-I don't mean any harm," he mumbled almost too quiet to hear. His eyes darted from her to ED-E and then at anything that wasn't them. Six was suddenly reminded of a bighorner calf that had been separated from the heard, skittish and lost. The comparison almost made her bark out a laugh. Achenar the Terrible was no baby herbivore even if he didn't mean any harm at the moment.

"Sure thing, pally. Why don't you prove it by sitting down on one of those logs and cooperating with me. You and I are going to have a nice long talk while I make sure you're fit as a fiddle."

Achenar finally focused on her with a thoughtful stare. She stared right back until he adjusted one of the logs and sat down without a word. Still not quite believing his passive attitude she kept her eyes on him, watching his every movement. ED-E would probably react first if he tried something, but she wasn't about to let her guard down.

"I think I remember you," he said, apparently finding the ability to speak more clearly.

"You think?" She kicked another log over closer to him so she could sit down without getting mud all over her clean pants. She hadn't exactly brought a lot of clothes with her to Tomahna.

He rubbed his face, not caring that he smeared mud all over it. "It's kind of blurry," he answered. "It's all kind of blurry after I Linked into the Book. For a long time after I got here I didn't even remember being trapped. All I could remember was that I Linked here and there wasn't a way back."

"What jogged your memory?" Six asked as she grabbed his wrist. He jerked a bit in surprise at first, but didn't put up any other resistance as she checked his pulse.

"A number of little things," he answered. "The first time I saw a camoudile I dreamed of the strangest dog I had ever seen, like something Sirrus would cobble together on one of his trips."

"I'm obligated to tell Roxie you said that," Six informed him, releasing wrist.

Achenar clasped his hands together in front of him, bracing his elbows on his knees. "It might not sound like it, but that was kind of a compliment. The dream reminded me of how I got that scar on my arm, which made me remember you stitching it. That led to the rest. I still don't remember too much of being in that dark place, but I remember you locking me up in Stoneship...Thank you."

"You're welcome," Six said, raising an eyebrow. She still wasn't sure if she trusted him, but at least he was being cooperative. She retrieved her stethoscope from her bag and silently gestured for him to turn his back to her. There was a moment when it looked like he wasn't going to, but it passed and he did as he was told. They fell into silence as Six listened to his lungs. When that was done, she got him to face her so she could check on his heart.

"Is my mother well?" he asked when she finished and began digging in her doctor's bag again.

"Yeah, she is." The sphygmomanometer was located under a bottle of whiskey she kept solely for medical purposes.

"That's good," he said, eyeing the new instrument she pulled out of her bag.

"Roll up your sleeve, please. I need to take a look at your blood pressure," she said. He did as he was told and she set to work. Truth be told, she had had worse patients in the past, a few of them had even smelled worse.

Achenar didn't seem to like being touched, or at least he wasn't used to it. Throughout the whole checkup he had been one step away from squirming like a small child who was getting their face washed by a fussy mother. When she was finished with the sphygmomanometer, satisfied that everything appeared to be in order, she tested his memory with a deck of cards at the same time he sat with a thermometer under his tongue. The time it took him to find all of the pairs wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. His temperature was better at least, completely normal.

"Congratulations, you appear healthy enough. If you've got some insidious disease that I missed then there's probably nothing I can do about it anyway," she said as she put her things away.

He frowned at her from behind his bushy beard that resembled a bird's nest, but said nothing.

"So how are things?" Six asked, shuffling her cards. "What are you up to?"

"I've taken to carving things," he said vaguely, toeing one of the logs.

"Whittling to pass the time?"

"I guess so." He stared down at his hands as he asked, "How is my sister?"

"She is one of the most well behaved and healthy babies I've ever met," Six answered honestly. When she had left, Yeesha had seemed determined to keep her mother from frowning. Perceptive girl. She'll be trouble when she's older.

"Is she happy?" he asked quietly.

"As much as any child her age can be," she answered.

Achenar just nodded. Six searched him for a long time, not entirely sure what she was looking for. He was hunched over and refusing to look back at her. She reached for her bag and wordlessly pulled out Saavedro's worn down journal. It was incomplete and missing pages, but it said enough. She passed it to him, insistent that he take it.

"Read it. Every word."

He opened the cover slowly, hesitant at what was waiting for him within the pages. He breathed out a long breath when he realized what it was he was reading. Six didn't take her eyes off of him as he read. Her hands remained occupied with her cards as she waited. It took him longer and longer to turn pages, his breathing become more ragged. With a start Six realized he was about ready to cry.

She yanked it out of his hands and put it away. Six drummed her fingers on her knee as she waited for Achenar to calm down a bit.

"Saavedro's alive?" He asked, his voice even rougher than normal.

"His family too," she replied with a nod.

He frowned at her. "Why wouldn't they be?"

"You fucked up the Lattice Tree pretty bad. Saavedro was convinced they were dead when he eventually made it back. He couldn't disable the shield to see for sure." Six rolled a log over and placed three cards on it. The queen of hearts, jack of clubs, and the jack of spades. "Find the lady," she told him and flipped all the cards over. She picked up a single card with one hand and the remaining two with the other.

"This is like the shell game. It's always rigged." Even still, he watched her movements as she mixed up the cards.

"Yes, yes it is. Doesn't mean you can't still play," she said.

"What's at stake?" Achenar asked her. He looked up at her when she let the face down cards lie still.

"What do you want?" Six countered.

"I'd like to meet my sister," he said with no thought at all.

"I'll advocate for that, but you have to win. Best three out of five," she said, waving her hand.

He stared at her, there was a healthy amount of suspicion in his eyes, but they were clear of the madness that she remembered filling them. Achenar flipped the middle card and the queen greeted them. He just frowned at her while she smiled back benignly.

"So, why'd you guys start a civil war on Narayan?" she asked.

He flinched and looked away from her. "We didn't mean to do that," He said, or she thought he said. Achenar was mumbling again.

"That didn't answer my question."

He remained silent and she shuffled the three cards again. Achenar tried the one on the left, but it was the jack of spades that said hello. Achenar's frown deepened along with his suspicion.

"What do you think of having a sister?" she asked him, giving him no further time to process his loss.

"That she can't be any worse than Sirrus."

Six cracked a smile. "Normally I would take that sentence as an evasion of the question, but I'd settle for that too if he were my brother."

Achenar shrugged. "He was a sweet kid when we were children, but that didn't last."

"Clearly."

"You might not believe this, but family is important to me. I...I know getting another chance from my parents is far too much to ask, but I would like another chance to be an older brother. I failed Sirrus pretty spectacularly in a lot of ways. I know better now."

"Try again," she said, waving her hand at the facedown cards.

He earned himself a queen. Achenar picked up the card and examined the image on it. He gave it back to her, mumbling something that sounded like: "There was a woman."

"There always is," she answered. "Where was this gal?"

"Narayan."

"Ah." And something clicked. It was the piece of the puzzle she was missing, but the image still wasn't complete. She needed to take another trip to Lattice Tree.

"I don't want to talk about it, I _don't_, but I will if that makes it so I can see my little sister." He was scratching at his wrist hard enough that it would draw blood if he kept it up.

"All you need is one more win and I'll do my very best to convince your parents," she said. "Between you and me, it won't take much to convince your mom."

Achenar stared at her expectantly.

"Why Riven?" All Atrus, Katran, and her had been able to do was speculate. In one letter, maybe seven years ago, there had been a vague throwaway line about Atrus asking Sirrus and Achenar the same question, but it hadn't amounted to much. Six had tried to follow up and only got an explanation from Katran that said the attempt at questioning them had dissolved into a fight between Atrus and whichever one they were talking to at the time.

He sighed and shook his head. "They won't tell me what happen there. I can tell something happened. I mean, they had to move the natives to a new Age. I tried asking, but father becomes defensive and mother withdrawn. Was she hurt?"

"She told me she was fine," Six said, unsure how much she should tell him.

"Yes, but was she?" he pressed.

"Your mom's a strong lady, but what happened shook her. If you expect details beyond that then you're pushing your luck."

Achenar stared at the angry clouds that were promising to bring heavy rainfall onto them very soon, but said nothing.

"If you didn't want to hurt her then why Riven?" she asked.

"Because we weren't going to hurt her," he said tiredly, closing his eyes. She could tell that he didn't expect her to believe him. "We sent father back to his old home, and mother to hers. We didn't know it was dangerous."

Six chose to say nothing in reply. She pointed at the cards and said, "I hope you were paying attention."

He opened his eyes and flipped the middle card. The queen was handed back to her without him bothering to look at it. "You're going to be caught in the rain if you stay," he said.

Six checked her pip-boy. "Yeah, my time is almost up. You earned your win. I'll be talking to your parents," she stood and brushed off the back of her pants. "If I come back here where would I be likely to find you?"

"There's a lake in the south jungle," he pointed vaguely in a direction over his shoulder. "My home is there."

She nodded, already anticipating getting hopelessly lost on her next visit. "So long, Achenar."

"*/{ $"

"ED-E says goodbye. Good luck with your carvings."

"Bye," he replied looking at the robot with a tamer version of the expression Atrus had on his face when he had first seen ED-E. The family was full of geniuses with more curiosity than was really healthy.

**2**

She could see nothing but a thick white fog outside of the Linking Chamber. Removing the bars and stumbling out onto the soaked grass didn't help her any. Six nearly ended up running into a razor thin tree that had bark that allowed it to blend in perfectly to the foggy environment. The fine leaves looked like long streams of water blowing in the wind.

"ED-E, I'm going to need your help navigating," she just managed to finish saying before she sneezed. She recovered and asked, "Are there a lot of animals here, or is Sirrus going to stick out like a sore thumb?"

"$)&!"

"Damn," she muttered. "Alright, let's stay near the Chamber. I don't want to wander too far out. Had I known I'd have to plan an expedition, I would have brought some more supplies."

A direction to walk in was picked arbitrarily, ED-E keeping her from running into the near invisible trees. At one point she had kneeled down to discover that the thick carpet of grass she was walking on was a grayish blue in color. She left deep footprints on the ground, each one filled with water. Shivering, she wished she had brought a heavier coat.

Six was getting better at seeing the trees before ED-E warned her away when she saw another trail of footprints. They looked fairly recent as far as she could tell. Six followed alongside them for a solid twenty minutes with her Regulator drawn, saying goodbye to her plan of staying near the Linking Chamber. She wasn't too worried, ED-E would know the way back if her pip-boy wasn't filling in the details for whatever reason.

A cabin slowly materialized out of the fog, the windows covered with pale cloth that looked more like blankets than curtains. The inside glowed with a steady light that told her there was either running electricity or fire-marble lamps. Six waltzed up to the door and knocked firmly on it three times. There was a nasty crash in response followed by pure silence.

"If you don't open this door under your own power in two seconds I'll break it down. One..."

The door was wrenched open, but Sirrus wasn't standing directly in the way. He was off to the side using part of it as cover. Smart man.

She grinned widely at him. "Doctor's call. I certainly hope you're doing better than the last time I had you in my care. Watching you dry heave into a bucket wasn't pleasant." When he didn't move she sized him up. "You gonna let me in, Crocodile?"

Sirrus had narrowed his eyes to slits and while the rest of his face betrayed nothing, the white knuckled grip he had on the door said a whole lot. He glanced down at the weapon in her hand and then up at ED-E floating silently beside her. Slowly, very slowly, he stepped away and let her in without a word.

The inside of Sirrus' cabin was very tidy in an almost manic sort of way. Minus a long workbench in the very back of the room, everything was just _so_. It was like he used a ruler to organize his few belongings. There were two shut doors branching off from the main room. From the outside it had looked like the cabin had a second floor with maybe three more rooms on the ground. Katran had told Six that they had made Sirrus a one room cabin before sending him to Veil. Sirrus must have taken the liberty to add more additions.

"What are you doing here?" Sirrus asked with poorly veiled suspicion. He remained by the door while Six invited herself to sit down on a dark wooden chair by the writing desk. The intricate, over the top design wasn't something Atrus or Katran would have made or bought, so Sirrus must have carved it himself. That also meant that there were different varieties of trees elsewhere. Nice to know the whole Age wasn't a bitch and a half to navigate.

"Why the hostility? I'm your friend, remember our last chat before you got shipped to Spire?" The key to dealing with Sirrus if you didn't want a migraine was to ease him into things. Orders, open disdain, and insults got very few results unless you were going for reverse psychology and that only worked about thirty percent of the time. He was pretty good at knowing when someone was trying to manipulate him. Of course it could also very well be that he was just extra paranoid regarding anything she said.

He cast a skeptical eyebrow at the weapon in her hand. "I recall," he said drily.

"Then relax, get off your feet. I'm here to give you a check up."

"So you say," he replied, not budging from his spot. "And if I refuse?"

"Nothing," she shrugged. "I just go back and tell your parents you're being an uncooperative little bastard."

His frown deepened. "My parents were wed when I was born, though there is some question of my brother's legitimacy."

"It's a figure of speech where I come from. If you don't want to know if you're healthy or not then I guess we'll just talk until it's time for me and ED-E to leave," Six reasoned as she examined him closely. He was pale, too pale when you considered he had naturally tanned skin. Unlike his brother, Sirrus' appearance was well put together. The red sweater with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the gray pants he was wearing looked brand new and he probably spent an hour in front of the mirror getting his hair right. "How you been, Red?" she asked, having not achieved as much as she had wanted from her appraisal of his physical appearance.

"Well," he answered evenly. "Why?"

She held up her free hand. "Just asking. Not everything has to have strings attached."

"With you and I it does," he replied without missing a beat.

"True enough," she admitted. "You sure you don't want to have a seat?"

"This is my home," he snapped.

She held up her hand again.

Sirrus finally allowed his eyes to slide off of her to examine ED-E who kept his distance. He tried walking up to him, but ED-E zoomed away.

"What is it?" he demanded to know. "How does it stay aloft?"

"My best friend, so keep your screwdriver to yourself." She moved to stand up, but ED-E did his equivalent of waving her away. She kept her chair, but got a firmer grip on her the Regulator. "And it's an antigravity device that let's him fly."

"You are dumbing it down," he guessed without looking at her. She had a feeling he was already come up with multiple theories.

"Okay, it involves a lot of electrodynamic mumbo jumbo I don't want to get into right now. I'm sure you can figure it out on your own if you wanted to." Sirrus stared off blankly at one of the fire-marble lamps like he was a thousand miles away and Six remembered Katran's fear over his mental stability. Isolation does strange things to people, and Sirrus wasn't exactly mentally sound to begin with.

Achenar had calmed down in his years of confinement, even seemed to have put himself together a bit, but Sirrus was showing her a remarkable impression of a time bomb. The look in his eyes, his body language…if she wasn't careful with what she said and did then he could really snap. It was like the two had swapped mental states. Maybe interrogating him over Narayan wasn't such a good idea. Treading lightly was the strategy here.

"So what have you been up to? Invent anything interesting?" Six asked.

Sirrus managed to focus on his cluttered workbench where he was in the middle of putting together some type of machine. "I am attempting to make a more efficient generator with my limited supplies," he said. He strode over to the table and began tidying it up, placing objects into a metal box and setting tools on a rack over the table. He kept his body positioned in a way that he could keep an eye on both Six and ED-E. She could imagine he had a weapon nearby, maybe under the table. The question was would he grab it?

"Where are you getting your power from?" she asked, beginning to tap her fingers against her knee in the rhythm of some marching band song the Enclave channel used to play. She couldn't remember the name of it.

"A dam and a windmill not far from here," he waved a hand vaguely to the west. "Before you insist on prying, I use the energy for a heater." One he didn't seem to be running because the inside was just as chilly as the outside. Six was just thankful it wasn't quite so wet inside.

"Why not just have a fireplace?" There were a number of open spaces for one.

"Less efficient and the wood from those trees outside does not burn well." He placed the last item into the box and stacked it under the table with several others, making sure it lined up perfectly with the one on the bottom.

"No?"

"The first and only time I attempted it the wood exploded." He brushed his hands together before rolling down his sleeves.

"Ouch."

"Yes." Sirrus finally came over and sat down on the chair by his workbench. "If you are going to interrogate me for my parents then do it. Do not just sit there feigning innocence."

"It's not your parents I'm interrogating you for. Your dad doesn't even know I'm here and your mom just wants to make sure you're healthy. Even if they had sent me to get information out of you I wouldn't tell them a thing so long as you aren't doing anything nefarious."

He tilted his head to the side, his eyes unreadable. "Why?"

"You're entitled to privacy. Besides, I'm your friend, remember?" She really was, especially when you consider that Sirrus had a very different definition of friendship than most other people.

"If you were my friend you would help get me _out_ of here," he said, his temper rearing up like an angry snake.

"Friends don't help friends do stupid things," Six told him. "If you really want out I should inform you good behavior gives untold rewards."

That gave him pause, his anger fleeing as quickly as it had come. "For how long?" Sirrus asked, following her implied statement.

"As long as it takes," she answered. "Seriously though, parole isn't out of the question. To be entirely honest with you, I'm not a huge fan of leaving you and your brother to cool your heels in your hotboxes."

"What _would_ you rather do?" he asked.

It was amazing how quickly people calm down when they were given room to maneuver. There were few things more dangerous than forcing something into a corner, be it animal or man.

"Take you both back to the Wasteland and put you into community service work in New Vegas or maybe Rivet City, somewhere I can keep a close eye on you. At least there, most people are wise enough and tough enough to stand up to you two." Not everyone, of course. There were always idiots no matter where you went. "At the same time, you'd be useful."

"Can I?" he asked immediately.

"What? Go to the Wasteland? You know there's a reason we call it that? Raiders, mutated abominations, feral animals, radiation, scarce clean food, limited water, vicious tribals, wars, acid rain, need I go on?" Who wanted to go live there if they had a choice?

"Is that a no?" There was that anger again, not as pronounced, but building.

"I thought you had a bigger sense of self preservation," she said, wondering if solitary had affected him worse than he let on.

"I did, and then I was locked up for the last ten years," he said, answering her unasked question. "This is the first time I have spoken to someone other than my parents. The first time I have spoken to anyone without obstructions in the way. It is true that this Age is infinitely better than Spire, it has life here, but there is still no one to talk to. And I am so, so bored. I have exhausted everything there is to do. Now I just occupy myself with busy work. The one thing Spire had over Veil are those crystals...I never did figure out for certain how they worked." He gazed off at a spot above her head, deep in thought.

"%^!)_"

Though he didn't understand a word ED-E said, the noise was enough to stop Sirrus' mind from wandering. He snapped out of his daze and Six was quick to start talking before he could fade out again, "I can talk to your folks, but I don't know if they are willing to put your life on the line like that."

"I am thirty-six years old. I am not a child." The wonders of D'ni blood. She wouldn't have guessed him to be that old. It reminded her of when she had presumed Achenar and Atrus to be brothers when she had seen their pictures.

"You look good for nearly forty," Six observed. Sirrus did his best to pretend that the compliment did not stroke his considerable ego. "Look, your parents care about you. Only god knows why. I've told them enough stories about home to make them very scared of where I come from. I don't think they'll be too keen to send you there. Here in Veil they can be assured that you're safe."

"And not wrecking anymore of father's precious Ages." Anyone else would have muttered that like an insolent child, but Sirrus somehow managed to make it sound like he was a victim of a terrible crime.

"Sirrus, I was just in Narayan." So much for not bringing up Narayan, but he needed to be reminded that she had seen his crimes first hand. There would be no pretending that it was all overblown.

"Oh?" he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "And how is Saavedro?" He could not have sounded more disinterested in the answer if he tried.

"Mad as a March hare. Thanks to you and your brother." That was probably putting it mildly. She would be genuinely surprised on her return to Narayan to hear that he was doing well and not ranting and raving like the lunatic he very much seemed to be.

"That civil war was not our fault," he stated, looking down at his fingernails. They weren't the manicured perfection she expected them to be. He had hands typical of any engineer or mechanic, rough with little pale scars here and there. Sirrus was such a contradiction to himself. If werewolves existed he would be one.

"I meant stranding him in J'nanin," she reminded him. Saavedro's diary was in her bag, but she got the distinct feeling he would even have half the reaction Achenar did. He would probably regard it much like she had regarded Pride and Prejudice when she had been forced to read it as an unimpressed fourteen year old.

Sirrus waved his hand dismissively in the air. "He was hardly stranded. The book to Narayan was there and unlocking it was child's play."

"For you and Achenar," she said.

"Saavedro was one of the more intelligent people I've met." That had got to be the biggest compliment in his repertoire. She was sure Saavedro would be honored. "He did manage to get through the lessons?" he asked.

"Yeah, eventually. He got a bit stuck at the shield though. Couldn't get passed it with just one person." Poor man hadn't the information or the tools like she had.

"The point of that puzzle was that it was simple for two people to solve it, but if both needed to be on the gondola it became more difficult. Achenar and I had to get creative." He smirked, clearly still pleased with whatever genius solution they had come up with.

"He thought his home and family were dead." It was a good thing she was so desensitized. Otherwise she would probably be very furious right now. As it stood, she couldn't bring herself to be more than slightly exasperated.

"Not my fault," he shrugged.

"_Wow_."

"^)/*"

"I did not murder his wife or his daughters. I am not responsible for his delusions," he said firmly, glaring at her like it was her fault.

"You are such a stunning well of empathy," Six told him, placing her hand over he heart. "Pull yourself together man! No need to get so emotional."

His only reply was a raised eyebrow. She sighed and gave it up as a losing battle for now. Instead, she looked around the cabin again as an excuse to stop looking at his annoying face. Her eyes stuck on the chess set in the corner, identical in every way to the one set up in the kitchen in Tomahna.

Six almost asked him if he was any good but stopped herself. That line would get her nowhere fast. Instead she asked, "Do you like games?"

"Depends on the game," he said warily.

"Card games?" she clarified.

He blinked owlishly, trying to follow her leaping thought process. "I haven't played one in a long time," he answered slowly.

"Wanna learn one? This one's popular back home. I think you'll like it. Poker is a fascinating little game of skill and chance..."

**3**

Sirrus kept her deck, but that was fine. She had plenty of others back home. He had become a little more tolerable during their second game of Texas Hold 'Em, by the time she taught him Solitaire he had even been comfortable in her presence.

She hadn't been okay with solitary confinement ten years ago and she still wasn't. She had to remind herself that the 1800s weren't exactly known for its stellar mental health practices. The D'ni didn't seem much better in that regard. Atrus was of a scientific mind, but some things take time. Letters just weren't as convincing as people and she didn't have the pre-war studies on hand that she was trying to convince him of. Strangely enough, some scientists don't just take people's word for it when they think they know better.

Achenar and Sirrus were still murders, among other things, but even they still needed to be treated like human beings. Or part human aliens, as the case may be. The sentiment still applied.

Six made an uneventful walk back to the Linking Chamber, Sirrus hadn't even tried to follow her. He had something else up his sleeve, she was sure of it. If she had any luck on her side, he'd wait until he got the answer about getting another prison transfer before he tried anything.

ED-E beeped to get Six's attention. She looked up, expecting to see Katran waiting for her, but saw Atrus instead. His brow was furrowed, but other than that his face was carefully blank. He had a right to be furious, but she didn't think he was, just disquieted.

She plastered on her best grin. "Hey, come to say hi to your son too?"

Silently he opened the gate so ED-E and she could step inside. He hit the switch to put the bar back in place. Without saying anything at all he Linked back to Tomahna.

"%!.,,)"

"You said it," she replied.

Six grabbed one of his antennas and touched the Linking Panel. She got one last look at the fog and noted a fast dark shape just inside her field of view.

**4**

Atrus was waiting in his bedroom, staring out the closed doors, when she made it up the hidden elevator. All the doors in Tomahna were see-through glass except for the ones to the Sun Room and the office, they clearly had no problem with the lack of general privacy.

"How are they?" he asked, stopping her from walking out the door. She'd prefer to talk in the office, but she supposed the bedroom was as good a meeting place as any.

"Achenar has a clean bill of health, from what I can tell. Sirrus wouldn't let me take a look at him," she said. ED-E beeped, a quick look at her pip-boy for the translation forced her to hide an amused smile. It was a good thing she was the only one who understood him.

Atrus nodded, not looking at her. "He always hated healers, even as a baby, if you can believe that. He would only ever let my grandmother take care of him. After she died it seemed like he never got sick. Looking back at it, maybe he just never said anything and I never noticed," Atrus sighed the last part.

"You know you can't keep them in those Ages forever," Six said instead of indulging his pity party.

"It's up to them," he answered in a tone that told her that he had had this conversation often in the past.

Six shook her head. "No, Atrus. It's up to you and your wife. You're their jailors." ED-E beeped again. Six jabbed her thumb up at the robot, "And he thinks you need to take a deep breath and consider the current situation, not the one ten years ago."

His eyes searched her for a moment before he said, "You two have something in mind."

She shrugged while ED-E bobbed beside her. "Achenar seems alright, all things considered, but Sirrus looks like he's gearing up for a massive breakdown. When that happens, and it will, it won't be pretty."

"What are you suggesting?" he asked.

"To put it simply, I want to take your son home with me."

"Absolutely not," he stepped over to her, stopping just shy of entering her personal space.

"What? Why not? I promise that I'll take real good care of him," she effected a begging tone more suited to a five year old. "It won't be like what happened to my goldfish! I'll feed him and play with him and-"

He interrupted her, "After everything you have told me about your Age, you really expect me to be okay sending my son there?"

"He would prefer it over being alone. The great thing about the Wasteland is that there is always someone ready to shoot him in the leg if he rubs someone the wrong way. Sirrus has technical skills and smarts that are rare anywhere. There are some projects in New Vegas that could use him. He might not know the tech yet, but I have a feeling it won't take him long to learn," Six explained. It was only a slight fib. She would actually put him to work in Novac and tell Manny to keep the riot shotgun he inherited from Ranger Andy loaded.

"I do not want my son dead," he insisted, the conversation starting to visually upset him.

"So you would just prefer him to go even more insane than he is now. He's a person, not a pet or a book. You can't shove him on a shelf and expect him to be fine the next time you get around to checking on him." And there was Atrus' biggest problem, his poor understanding of living people. He had a superficial grasp at best. A common trait for people raised in isolation. It had just been him and his grandmother who was replaced by his father who was replaced by his wife. Those were the only deep relationships he had with others his whole life, and she had some doubts about how close he had actually been to Gehn. Excuse her if she didn't think he was an authority on how people should be treated.

As if he could hear what she was thinking, he looked away from her. "I know! I know. You are right. I do not want you to be, but you are. And Catherine would agree with you if we were to go and ask her opinion. I just…I just want to keep them close. Somewhere I know they are safe and out of trouble. I have been a terrible father and they terrible sons in turn, but I do love them. I gave them space as children, as I thought that was the right thing to do, but I was wrong."

"Extremes of one thing or another are always bad," she said softly.

"I discovered that too late," he sighed, he was doing an awful lot of that. Atrus stepped away from her to sit down at the edge of the bed.

"(!$/?:"

Six nodded up at ED-E in complete agreement. "It might be too late to have an ideal relationship with your sons, but it doesn't have to remain completely broken."

Nothing was said for a long time after that. Atrus rubbed his hands together absentmindedly just before he started speaking again, "Did you know the D'ni do not consider someone an adult until they are twenty-five? I didn't until I found the other survivors. D'ni age slower, mature slower. Even part D'ni are affected by this."

"And how old were you and Kat when Achenar was born?" she asked, she had a feeling where this was going.

"Not twenty-five," he answered with some black humor. "We had just escaped from Gehn a year before. Finding out that Catherine was pregnant was a mixed blessing. I had never even considered the idea of children. I'm not proud of it, but it felt like being trapped again by my father."

"You were young." If she had a cap for every time some teenage parent abandoned a child she could rebuild the entire downtown DC area in just a couple of years. The man in front of her had done the rare thing by keeping his kid.

"And I had my grandmother," Atrus said, unintentionally interrupting her train of thought. "She was more than happy to care for Achenar, and later Sirrus. She gave Catherine and I the freedom we still so craved."

"Then she died," Six said so he wouldn't have to.

"Yes," he whispered. "And we all mourned. In a time in which we all should have pulled together, we drifted apart instead. I locked myself away from everything. It was not as though I did not notice their pain. I would stay up late into the night and sometimes I could hear Achenar sobbing into his pillow when I walked by his room. If I wandered the halls of my home, I would sometimes encounter Sirrus who did little but stare at the world through eyes that didn't seem to see much of anything at all. I would have comforted them if I knew how." He released a bitter laugh as he said, "How selfish it seems now."

"It's never too late to teach an old dog new tricks," she told him. ED-E beeped his agreement.

Atrus looked between the two of them. "If anything, I have to try harder for Yeesha's sake. I refuse to make the same mistakes again."

"Knowing you have a problem is the first step." It relieved her to no end that he was trying to do better, that he was acknowledging what went wrong. Ignoring it wouldn't have done any good.

"I have been practicing expressing myself more with my sons," he said, again making her think he could read her mind. "I think Achenar and I are having an easier time at communicating now. It had always been a problem trying to talk to him in the past. We have managed to hold a full conversations without needing Catherine to mediate." He smiled a little before the levity dropped immediately. "In contrast, I don't know what to make of Sirrus."

"Easy," she said. "Ambush predator."

"I don't want to believe that's all he is," he answered slowly.

"'Course not. He also has OCPD." At Atrus' expectant look she explained, "Obsessive compulsive personality disorder, not to be confused with OCD which is a different thing."

"The difference?" he asked.

"OCD is an anxiety disorder and OCPD if a personality one. Sirrus is a textbook example. There's not much you can do about it in the current situation. I mean, antidepressants sometimes helps, but the Followers only have so much and I don't trust any other suppliers with something like that. OCPD can cause suicidal urges, but I think Sirrus is too fond of himself to go that route." Maybe. "I don't think he even realizes that there's anything wrong with him."

"I want to do whatever is necessary to fix my family," Atrus said. "They are my priority now, as they always should have been."

"The Wasteland?" she asked, following up on her original question.

He shook his head. "Catherine and I need to talk it over."

"Take your time."

**5**

"Caught red handed," Six said as she stepped through the door into Yeesha's room. They were still working on it technically. The walls still needed a coating of paint, and there weren't really any decorations. Only a crib and some scattered toys were inside. The girl usually still slept in her parent's room unless someone was in the kitchen while she was napping.

Katran looked up at her. She was sitting on the floor with her legs folded under her, rubbing Reilly's belly with one hand. The dog woofed a soft greeting at Six and Yeesha waved a block at her.

"He was not angry, as I knew he wouldn't be. He was not even surprised," Katran said.

Six sat down across from her, moving a few blocks out of the way. Yeesha dove for one, falling over in the process. She sat up instantly like nothing happened.

"Oh, I know. I was just hoping to avoid the ugly conversation for a little while," Six said as she placed a block on top of two more. Yeesha snagged it back and placed it in a cluster with several others. Six admitted defeat and turned back to Katran with a smile.

"Which conversation?" she asked, an almost imperceptible frown marring her face.

"He ought to fill you in soon," Six said. Reilly rolled over to climb into her lap. "You know I don't have any treats on me," she told the dog. Reilly licked at her face. "I don't have any treats! Kat help me!" Two sets of giggles answered her. "Okay, okay! We'll go play fetch or something. Give me thirty minutes, alright?"

Reilly finally stopped attacking her. She bounded off of her, nearly toppling her over in the process, to bark at the birds loitering about the railing outside. Someone was well rested.

"How are they?" Katran asked her, making Six turn away from Reilly's antics.

"As well as can be," she answered.

Katran averted her eyes, "That's all I can really hope for, isn't it?"

"Chin up, things could be a lot worse," Six smiled brightly.

Katran returned it weakly before it faded. She tilted her head at her and said, "Six?"

"Hm?"

"Are you…I know you and Atrus have been planning to go to Voltaic, but I was wondering if you had anything else planned after that?" Katran asked.

"I ought to check up on what's going on in Narayan, but other than that? No. Why?" Six felt a tug on her jacket sleeve. Looking down, she saw that Yeesha had crawled up to her. The girl held a block up to her, and Six could do nothing but accept it with a grin. She placed it on top of the five block tower and looked to Yeesha for approval. The girl had already lost interest. She crawled away to grasp at the SPECIAL book lying near her mother. Yeesha opened it up somewhere in the middle without an ounce of grace and dropped it onto the floor. The two adults cracked a smile at each other.

"Would you like to visit Tay?" Katran asked.

"Love to," Six replied. "How's everything going over there? Your letters have been pretty sparse on that subject."

"I didn't wish to worry Atrus," she sighed. "He already has so much on his shoulders."

"That doesn't sound great, Kat." What was the matter? Six tried to recall all mentions of Tay in the letters she had received, but all she could recall was some trivial nonspecific stuff. Getting farms started, who had gotten into the ruling council, short updates on their mutual friends, that sort of thing.

"It's not so bad," Katran was quick to reassure. "Sunny says he has the situation well in hand."

"But there is a situation?" Six asked. So it wasn't just Atrus who had wanted her help when he had invited her to stay the moment he found out they were close to solving the problem with the portal.

"Yes, but perhaps I should wait to explain so you can focus on your immediate concerns." Katran said as Reilly wandered back inside, successful in her quest to put the fear of god into the birds. Katran held up her hand and the dog obediently went over to her to be pet.

"Well, I'll have ED-E add a trip to Tay to my busy schedule when he's finished examining your dam." The robot had wanted to see how hard it would be to integrate some of their technology with Atrus'. Katran liked to vent to her about the random power outages her husband had a habit of causing at inopportune times. Once or twice was no big deal, but according to her it was often enough to be truly annoying. "Speaking of Sunny, how is he?"

"You are solely responsible for turning him into bloodthirsty scoundrel," she said it with a smile that told Six that she meant that in the best possible way.

"I do my best."

"It's thanks to him and his considerable efforts that had convinced many of Gehn's former worshippers to turn from their old ways and strive for a new future. It took great courage and charisma on his part to rally everyone together, especially for one so young. These days he mostly just runs around Tay socializing it would seem. He solves many miscellaneous problems the council can't be bothered with." Katran sounded proud of him, and Six was struck with the fact that she knew very little of Katran's relationship with Sunny. She had taught him English, but what more than that? Was he a relative, a child of a friend, a random orphan she decided that she liked?

"Sounds like what I do, just with less shooting on both sides." Did they even have guns in Tay? Another thing she would have to look into.

"Thank the Maker," Katran said more to herself than to Six. "He still looks up to you, he will be more than pleased by your visit."

"Yeah, it'll be great to see for myself how Tay's doing." Last time she had seen the Age it had been like an insect hive inside that gigantic tree. That couldn't have lasted long with how much of a sea faring race they were. Fishing had been a big part of their culture.

"Better after we took your suggestion to create a sheriff's office," Katran told her.

Six suppressed a laugh. "Did you actually call it that?"

"Sheriff? Yes. Why? Shouldn't we have?"

"No, it's fine. I just wasn't expecting you to actually use it." Well the Rivenese wouldn't be the first people to adopt words from other languages. English itself was a mutant hybrid with little originality.

"It's the word you used and it was so far removed from Gehn's own law enforcement that we felt it was safe," Katran explained.

"Alright. So who was the lucky guy or gal voted into office?" Six asked even though she had a hunch.

"The unfortunate soul you and Sunny made a figurehead of," she replied with disapproval that was tempered with fondness. Six mentally congratulated herself for guessing correctly.

"Good to hear Moe is still on top of the world." Good ol' reliable Moe.

"And that your nickname for him has stuck like glue," Katran informed her.

A rueful grin spread across Six's face as she said, "He really hates me, doesn't he?"

"Hate is a strong word."

"He isn't going to attack me on sight is he?" Six couldn't help but ask. She knew the feeling. She had despised Three Dog for a solid two and half years for all those broadcasts that made her famous in the capital, that made her enemies more aware of her movements, for practically nominating her for sainthood. After awhile she had understood what he was doing. Good morale in the Wasteland, especially on the east coast, was hard to come by. Any little grain of it spread as fast as possible could do wonders for people. That was why she didn't regret what she had done to Moe. Riven needed heroes more than he needed peace of mind.

"No," Katran reassured her. "He might have before being put in charge of keeping the harmony, but he does like his job. He grumbles a lot less than he has in previous years."

"Is he good at it?" That was the important thing.

"I believe so, but my standards for such things do not compare to yours," Katran said.

"Has crime gone down?" she asked, expanding on her previous question.

"Our system before we nominated Moe had been trying to let the people themselves bring criminals forward. It was how it was done on Riven during Gehn's time, but it was not as productive now. People had been too afraid of Gehn to act out, but now…"

"Now people are shaking off their fear. Now, people are being people rather than serfs in a fiefdom. They want to see how far they can push their new freedom they are only now realizing that they have," Six said. Hadn't the Pitt been much the same? After their uprising it had been six years before real unrest started. In Terahnee, it had been immediately only due to how beaten down they were and just how long their servitude had been. The bloodshed had been a long time coming with no outlet, like pressure building up between two fault lines. It was a damn good thing Atrus had committed her bomb recipe to memory and recalled enough of her long winded stories to form a sort of strategy. What happened could have gone a lot worse than it had.

"That is not an untrue assessment of the situation," Katran said, her eyes downcast. She had clearly been hoping for something brighter. That was on the horizon, but it wouldn't be anytime soon for Tay. It might even happen only after Katran was dead. Her daughter would be there, maybe even her sons if they could straighten up and fly right. Speaking of which…

"I kind of made a deal with Achenar. In exchange for clearing up some things, I told him I'd talk to you about meeting Yeesha."

"I think it's a wonderful idea," she said immediately.

"Atrus?" Six asked.

"Yes and no," Katran said. "It's the same thing as always. The want for us to be a family, whole, and the want to protect people from them. Yeesha especially. He fears they'll hurt her, use her. I fear that too, but we can't live in fear. We'll never heal that way." She sighed, "Yeesha may be too much of a risk."

"Better they get to know her now as a person rather than just a nebulous idea they know of, but don't actually_ know_." What would happen if they broke out, or someone broke them out?

"I think so too," Katran said just as Yeesha released a great yawn and curled up on the floor. "Oh, someone needs a nap." She gently picked up her daughter to take her over to the crib in the corner.

"Yeah, I promised a certain dog some exercise." Six stood up, being careful not to knock the blocks over.

"I will see you at lunch," Katran whispered.

"I'll try not to skip," she replied just as quietly.

She laughed softly, "You are as bad as Atrus. Make sure to drag him into the kitchen at noon for me, will you?"

"Sure thing." Six moved to walk out, but stopped when she caught sight of the SPECIAL book. She picked it up and opened it to the last page out of curiosity.

Yeesha would be a very intelligent and perceptive woman when she was older, but she needed to work on her charisma. That was alright. Six had some self help books for that.

End of Chapter Seven

Up Next: Voltaic  


**Author's Note: **

I'm so sorry for the lack of updates!

Very little has gone right for me these past couple of months. First I was obscenely busy, then I had well over two weeks worth of computer troubles, then Wasteland 2 came out and a good chunk of my free time went into that. This chapter also stretched on longer than I really thought it would. I almost split it into two parts.

Things should be better now, so the delay between updates shouldn't be as long. Hopefully. Maybe. We'll see. Sorry in advance if I'm wrong.

You are a wonderful person for your continued patience,

_Home On the Wastes_


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